


The Saber

by SavageStar



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Armitage Hux is a Jerk, BDSM, Beating, Child Death, Corporal Punishment, Dark, Decapitation, Dominant Kylo Ren, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Forced Cohabitation, Gang Rape, Humiliation, Hurt Kylo Ren, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, Master & Padawan Relationship(s), Master/Slave, Not Canon Compliant, Oral Sex, Padawan Reader (Star Wars), Padawan Shenanigans (Star Wars), Revenge, Rough Oral Sex, Seduction to the Dark Side, Smut, Spanking, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Tags May Change, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:00:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 18
Words: 41,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SavageStar/pseuds/SavageStar
Summary: Thanks to Melisssa Summers in the Kylo Ren/Adam Driver Facebook Group for this writing prompt:You work on the bridge on the Starkiller. You just watched Commander Kylo Ren watching the massive laser blow five planets in the Hosnian System. You were intrigued by him, even though you have never seen him without his mask on. One day General Hux makes you deliver a message to Commander Ren, who was in his quarters. When you go in he is not there and you turn to leave but his lightsaber catches your eye. As soon as you touch it you experience a vision like Rey did on Takodana and a voice like Obi-Wan telling it just the beginning. The door hisses open and in walks Commander Ren who either finds you with his lightsaber after your vision or during.
Relationships: Kylo Ren & Reader, Kylo Ren & You, Kylo Ren/Reader, Kylo Ren/You
Comments: 25
Kudos: 20





	1. In which you meet Kylo Ren.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shortandfunable](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortandfunable/gifts).



“Here, Loran,” Hux approached, extending a small message disk to you. “Take this to Commander Ren in his quarters.”

“Don’t we have droids for that, sir?”

“Don’t question me, girl!” Hux barked at you. “Do as you’re told!”

“Yes, sir!” you saluted him and scurried away to do his bidding. You thought it was curious that Hux would ask you to take a simple message disk all the way from the Command Bridge to the upper habitation levels reserved for senior command staff, but you’d argued with him as much as you cared to for one day.

Arriving at Ren’s quarters, you signaled several times, receiving no answer. After Hux’s outburst, you weren’t willing to go back with the disk still in your possession. However, your code cylinders wouldn’t allow you access to doors on this level, so you waylaid a passing servobot and had it open Ren’s quarters for you.

In the dim room, you searched for an appropriate place to leave the disk where Ren would see it, and it wasn’t too hard – there was only a bed (and a very large one at that) flanked by nightstands on either side, a tall dresser, and a matching desk and chair. You don’t know what you were expecting. You actually hadn’t thought much about it, really.

As you left the message disk face up in the center of the desk, your eye caught on something sitting in a gleaming metal stand on the top of the dresser. It was a long, cylindrical object, slightly flared at the base and topped with two vents at the tip, forming a “T” shape. It was a curious item, and then suddenly, you realized – this was the lightsaber you’d seen gracing the hip of Kylo Ren.

‘Just for a minute,’ you told yourself, lifting the object down from its place and holding it with great reverence. Your mouth fell open, your heart raced and your pulse quickened as your eyes roamed over its gunmetal finish. It was not the neat, polished weapon you thought it would be – you’d seen spanners that were more streamlined than this. It was rough, scarred…

Your vision became tunneled and you were looking at the inside of a small hut, a bright green glow clouding your vision as rocks crumbled all around you… then you were seeing fire and hearing screams everywhere… a band of knights, all in black and bearing all sorts of weapons… Kylo Ren, his red lightsaber lit and his quick strides stalking toward you… an old bearded man in sandy colored robes with gentle eyes turned to look at you, whispering “this is just the beginning”… then a large black room, a crumpled old man sitting on a throne, his skeletal fingers reaching out to point at you, electricity emanating from his fingers… the lightning striking you, the heat and stinging pain imploding in your mind…

A booted toe was kicking you.

“Get up,” a harsh electronic voice commanded you.

You sat up on the shiny black tile of the floor of Ren’s quarters and shook your aching head, trying to remember where you were while attempting to clear your mind of the visions you’d experienced.

“Get. Up.” the voice commanded you again. Why was everybody bossing you around today?

You scrambled to your feet, still gripping the lightsaber, and came face to chest with Kylo Ren.

“Oh, no,” you whispered to yourself as you tried to hand the weapon back to its rightful owner. Instead, Ren stalked you backwards until you ran into the dresser, trapped between him and the tall piece of furniture, the lightsaber now crushed between the two of you as its sharp edges cut painfully into your slender fingers. You gulped in fear.

“Who are you?” he demanded, staring down at you through his mask.

“Corporal Loran,” you managed to stammer. “I- I brought you a message disk. From General Hux.”

“We have droids for that,” he stated suspiciously.

“General Hux didn’t agree,” you replied softly. “Can I give this back to you now, please?” you asked as you tried to work your hand out from between your bodies. You realized as you struggled that he seemed to be enjoying your discomfort and you couldn’t help noticing the warm scent of him, your face nearly brushing up against the fabric of his jacket.

Ren stepped back a bit and tore the lightsaber from your hand with his gloved one.

“You shouldn’t have had it in the first place,” he grumbled at you.

“No, I shouldn’t, I’m sorry, Commander,” you apologized. “I have no excuse.”

“I wouldn’t accept one anyway,” Ren replied as your throat tightened painfully while he hooked the lightsaber to his belt. You began choking, your fingers tearing at the band of power surrounding your neck. Ren was going to do to you what you’d seen him do to others who disappointed him – he was going to kill you, right here and now, away from prying eyes and the power of authority. No one was here to stop him, and you certainly didn’t have the strength to do so. But while you were scared of your predicament, you were also angry. You’d made a mistake, certainly, but for Ren to put his hands on you like this, bullying a woman, how dare he! You glared at him as rage filled you…

The pressure suddenly and mysteriously released and you inhaled sharply, gasping for breath. You were still angry, but not enough to mouth off to the commander. Instead, you began to excuse yourself.

“The disk…” you choked out, breathing heavily, “is on your desk. I need to return to the bridge, sir.”

“No,” he replied. “I have other plans for you.” Ren grabbed you by the upper arm and took you down the hall, dragging you to keep up as he pulled you into one of the lifts. The two of you made your way through a maze of hallways, finally arriving at a small chamber where the door lifted up to reveal a flat metal table in an upright position and surrounded by some frightening looking instruments. 

Sensing your apprehension, Ren fairly threw you through the door and you slammed into the face of the table. Fear surged through you – you knew what this was. You whirled to face him, putting your hands up to keep him at bay and praying he wasn’t going to do what you knew he was about to do.

“Don’t, please!” you begged. “No! I gave it back, I don’t want it!”

He grasped your slim wrists in his large hands, the manacles snapping shut on you of their own accord, so it seemed. Your arms were now pinioned to the table and he did the same to your ankles. Terror gripped you and you were ready to scream, but you fought it, sure it would do nothing other than agitate Ren even further.

He was silent and it scared you more than if he yelled. You swallowed hard and closed your eyes, trying to escape mentally if you couldn’t do so physically. You could hear him circling you, then a soft click and a hiss. Your curiosity piqued, you opened your eyes slightly to see him now standing in front of you without his helmet. His eyes were a soft brown, his jet black hair shiny and falling in waves around his serious face.

“What are you going to do to me?” you begged, wanting him to get it over with already.

“I don’t want to have to do this to you,” he said quietly. “Cooperate with me, and this will go faster.”

You wanted to be willing to do anything to get out of the situation, even if your instincts told you to fight with everything you were worth.

“Alright,” you assented, trying to find the courage to acquiesce.

Ren placed both his hands on either side of your head and touched his forehead to yours. You could feel his sweet breath wafting over your face, the pleasant musk of him muddling your feelings as your breathing started to come in short gasps.

“Calm down,” he advised, and you felt a peacefulness wash over you, almost sedating you, and then he entered your mind. You could feel his presence in your psyche, your memories, your thoughts and feelings. You wanted to pull back, to hide from him.

“Don’t fight me,” he said tersely. It was almost painful as a stretching sensation in your head pulled at you. Tears began rolling from the corner of your eyes as he tapped into something – and suddenly, you felt him _back_. Sadness, rage, pain and fear formed a toxic soup of emotion in him, and you cringed as you retreated from it, not wanting to taste its bitterness.

Ren abruptly released you, his hands hovering in mid-air. He looked surprised as if he was shocked that he’d found what he was looking for. Taking a moment to recover, he placed his helmet back on his head and released you.

“Come with me,” he demanded, dragging you again by the arm as he proceeded down the hallway to a small door. It opened with a whoosh and he threw you down the short set of stairs to crumple into a heap on the floor. He shut the door with nary a word as you tried to scramble to stop him,but you reached the door just after it shut, the slamming noise echoing in finality around the close walls.

It was dim in the small cell, and you were so confused. What could you possibly have done to make him treat you like this? An infraction like robbery or theft was punishable by demotion or work detail, not imprisonment. You hadn’t even technically stolen the saber, you’d never left his quarters with it, and you were authorized to be there. Well, almost authorized. You were afraid Hux was going to lose his mind when you returned and he found out you’d had this conflict with Ren.

Days went by. No one came by except to bring you food and water, and even that was passed through an opening by a droid. You had only a small toilet and sink and it was difficult to keep yourself clean. You were beginning to become very afraid. By the fifth day you made noise, hollering and banging, trying to attract attention but it was to no avail. By the eighth day you began to think you were going to be allowed to die in here, but you didn’t know why they’d bother to feed you if you were to be executed.

On the ninth day, you were sleeping when the door opened and Kylo Ren descended the stairs to wake you. “Get up, Loran,” he commanded you. As you rose slowly from the bunk you tried to talk, but you’d used your voice so little in the past several days it just came out as a dry croak.

“Please,” you rasped, “take me out of here.”

Kylo looked down at you from behind his mask. You wished you could have seen his expression so you knew what to expect. He merely stood aside to allow you to ascend the stairs, which you did with halting steps since you were so weak. When you reached the top, you needed to lean against the wall. You didn’t know if you could make it back to wherever you were being taken.

Suddenly, you felt Ren lifting you from under your arms and knees, and you lay your head against his chest, the pleasant scent of his uniform filling your nostrils. He looked down at you and you wondered what he was thinking. You thought you sensed compassion, sadness…

“Stop that,” he admonished you.

“Stop what?” you asked.

He hesitated at first. “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked.

You shook your head confusedly.

He merely continued his long strides down the hallway back toward the lift. Here, he set you back down on your feet and you held onto the walls, trying to get your legs back under yourself.

“Where are you taking me?” you asked.

He remained silent, his hands clasped in front of him as the lift descended floor after floor into the depths of _The Finalizer_ , the rush of movement almost making you dizzy.

Finally, you reached your stop and the door hissed open to reveal the main hangar, a panoply of ships laid out across the sleek floor. He gripped your arm, almost as much to aid your halting steps as to keep you under control, but he guided you on his terms nonetheless.

The two of you approached an Upsilon-class ship, immense even for a shuttle, for it had a passenger compartment with room for ten crew. He pushed you ahead of him up the ramp into the cabin and sat where he pointed, a seat behind and to the right of the pilot, directly across from the navigator’s station. There were no other crew, and you were surprised to see he was piloting this alone.

“I can help navigate us, Commander,” you offered hesitantly.

“No,” he replied, flicking switches and engaging drives. “In fact,” he said almost to himself, pulling a pair of binders out of an overhead compartment. He leaned over and put one on your wrist, snapping it closed and attaching the other to the arm of the seat. You were sorry you even offered to help as you scowled at him. “Really?” you asked in annoyance.

“Trust is earned,” Kylo answered, then returned to power up the ship.

The cabin was silent as he took off, leaving _The Finalizer_ behind to head off for an unknown destination. Well, unknown to you, at least. Ren seemed to know exactly where he was going but he wasn’t sharing that information with you as he silently piloted the shuttle across the Mid-Rim.

Setting the ship on autopilot several hours into the trip, you missed it when Kylo tenderly caressed your cheek as you slept, your head resting on your arms, folded across the console in front of you…


	2. In which you are abducted.

Waking from your nap with an impression of the texture of your uniform on your face, you tried to rub your cheeks and stretch as much as the shackles allowed you. It was difficult considering you were still held prisoner by Ren.

“What is it you do on the bridge, Loran?” Kylo asked as he returned to the cabin and flopped in the captain’s chair, checked gauges and engaged the landing gear.

“Like I told you, I’m a navigator,” you answered sleepily, annoyed he hadn’t paid attention when you had offered to help guide the shuttle.

“Oh, good,” Ren replied, “Hux won’t miss you.”

“Why do you say that?” with curiosity.

“Because he doesn’t like anybody telling him where to go,” Ren commented with derision.

You wanted to snicker at his jibe, agreeing that Hux was an insufferable know-it-all. You also found it curious he had a sense of humor, but you were afraid he’d be mad that you laughed, such a serious countenance he carried all the time. Instead, you turned your head to the side and smiled. Plus, you didn’t want to feel like you were condoning his behavior considering the way he was treating you.

“It’s okay, you can laugh,” he reassured you as he dropped the ship out of lightspeed.

You gave him a brief smile which you’d swear caused the ghost of a look of relief to pass over his face.

Returning to the task at hand, Ren steered the ship into the atmosphere of a planet. As the vessel neared the planet’s surface, you looked through the cockpit windows. You thought you might recognize the topography from your stellar geography classes, but you weren’t sure. It reminded you of Hutts… Vodran? You kept that information to yourself for the moment, thinking it was better to let Kylo think you didn’t know where you were. You had to get every advantage over the situation that you could.

Ren guided the ship in, landing in an isolated area among trees and swamps and you could see a low building in the distance amongst vines and other flora.

Ren left you tethered to the console while he went to the cargo hold to gather up some gear. When he came back almost a half-hour later, he rearranged your manacles, putting both your wrists behind you. “Can’t have you running off on me,” he muttered.

“Can you at least put them in front of me so I can keep my balance?” you pleaded with him. “The terrain out there looks difficult, and I’m sure you don’t want to have to pick me up out of the mud.”

Ren looked at you thoughtfully for a moment but relented, bringing your hands together at your waist. After he clicked them in place, he put a gloved finger very near your face. “Don’t run” he threatened you slowly, “I will catch you and you will suffer for it, I promise you.”

You nodded slightly, meeting his stare back with one of your own.

“Let’s get moving, it’s getting dark,” he said, placing his hand on the manacles and pulling on your wrists. He led you down the ramp where a load of equipment was piled and activated a repulsorlift carrier to transport all the equipment he’d unloaded. He held on to you while he guided the carrier down a small trail ahead.

It was muddy and uneven, and you nearly tripped a couple of times, leaning heavily against Ren’s unrelenting grip on you. Eventually, the two of you reached a pair of blast doors where you watched in awe as Ren held his free hand up and the doors slid aside for him.

As you entered the building you observed it was dark and dank inside, and you could tell it had been unoccupied for quite a while, cobwebs draped from corners and dust coating the floor. Ren left the carrier just inside the doorway and closed them again, the clanging noise making you jump.

“Stay here,” Ren advised you as he started down a hallway, leaving you in the dark. You were frightened to be alone in these conditions and as much as you were uncomfortable with him, you were hoping he’d be back sooner than later because you thought you heard something scurrying in the darkness.

A low hum began emanating from deep within the building as lighting came to life all around you, illuminating the long hallways surrounding you. You stood at a ‘tee’, hallways stretching to the left and right of you as well as straight ahead.

You could see from the design aesthetic that it was a long-abandoned Imperial base and you couldn’t fathom what reason Ren would have for bringing you here. There didn’t seem to be anything special about this base; it was filthy, neglected and mostly empty. If he’d wanted to drag you off alone to rape you, he could have done that back at _The Finalizer_. Besides, he could probably have his pick of women if he was so inclined; despite his reputation of being evil, angry and dangerous, there were still those women out there who would gladly spread their legs for him. You, fortunately, were not one of them, and then you chided yourself for thinking he’d be interested enough in you to do that, anyway. At least you could put that fear out of your mind.

You could see Ren returning from the central hallway which he’d gone down. As he stalked back toward the entrance, you took note of him in full for the first time. His black hair ruffled lightly with each stride, his cape fluttered in waves behind him, and his strong legs marched with purpose toward you. He was intense, he was powerful… he was bearing down on you. You shrank back a bit as he returned, but when he did, he unlocked your shackles.

“This is a privilege you’ve earned,” he said as he tucked them into his belt. “Don’t make me put them back on.”

“No, I won’t. Thank you,” you said softly, trying to rub the marks out of your wrists.

“Follow me,” he commanded you as he pushed the carrier down the hallway.

The two of you stopped at another set of double-doors, much smaller than the ones at the entrance, but strong and solid nonetheless. They moved aside just the same under Ren’s power. Inside was an officer’s quarters – the usual complement of furniture was present and Ren left the equipment just inside the door.

“This way,” he directed you as he headed across the hallway.

A single door opened and presented a much different room; it had probably been an officer’s ready room but now it was vacant, nothing but dust and debris on the black-tiled floors. Ren pushed you gently into the room and shut the door behind you, saying nothing as you watched his face disappear behind the hatch.

There was a dim light emanating from the perimeter of the ceiling. You looked around for the light controls and the temperature controls if there were any; the planet’s humid atmosphere had left this facility more damp than you were comfortable with, though you were glad to see there didn’t appear to be any mold.

Your door suddenly slid open again, and you watched as Ren brought a cot and a crate into the room and you stood by as he set up the temporary bed. “You sleep here,” he said firmly. The cot had only a mattress, but you were grateful you at least wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor.

“Here,” he said as he shoved the crate across the floor to you with his heavily booted foot. “Clothing, linens, toiletries. Get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow will be a busy day.” He turned in a flurry of cape and swept from the room without another word.

~~~~~~

Morning came without warning, and so did Ren.

“Up,” he said sternly, kicking the corner of your cot. Your eyes were blurry and you were still tired, having been unable to fall asleep and tossing and turning for several hours last night. Your mind had been racing with fear and confusion. “Get clean and get dressed. Your training starts today. No questions.”

Unwilling to disobey him, you got up and headed for the refresher, closing the door between you and getting cleaned up and changed into one of the fresh sets of clothing he’d provided for you – a tunic and pants, all black. He already had the door to the quarters open when you came back out, and you followed him as he headed into the hallway. He was not wearing his cape today, neither his mask, and it gave you a chance to take in his appearance as he led you through the twists and turns of the facility.

His hair was wavy and a deep brown, the color of caf beans, and he was tall – so tall. His long legs meant his strides were almost twice as long as yours and you had a hard time keeping up with him. Eventually, he led you to a large room, tall and echoing with emptiness. It looked like it might have been a hangar at one time and there were abandoned storage crates lying around amongst the dirt and debris.

“I’m hungry,” you noted to him as you realized you were low on energy.

He looked sidelong at you and moved over to one of the crates he’d brought to the room which he opened to pull out rations and bottles of water. He tossed some to you while he sat on a crate across from you and tucked into some himself.

The two of you ate in silence, the dry ration bars making you drink deeply of the tepid water. You decided to try to connect with him.

“These things are awful, aren’t they?” you joked, indicating the bland foodstuff.

Ren shrugged. “I’ve been eating them off and on for years. They keep you alive, they’re not meant to taste good.”

“Yeah,” you agreed. “At least they’re not as bad as those nutrition injections, huh?” you shuddered, recalling the time you’d had to be supplied with supplementation through shots into your intestines.

“Wouldn’t know,” Ren replied, tossing the empty containers back into the crate.

You were disappointed you’d failed to find a common ground where you could establish a channel to relate with him on a more even level.

“Well, you’re lucky,” you said, “it’s awful.”

“What’s going to be awful,” he replied, “is if you defy me. You will do as I tell you, when I tell you, understood?” he commanded as he glowered down at you.

“Yes, sir,” you replied.

“Good,” was all he said in response.

Remembering his ‘no questions’ rule, you sat silently awaiting his next instructions.

He circled you at first, extending his hand toward you as he closed his eyes and you felt that same tug against your mind again. You squeezed your eyes shut, the discomfort familiar but not pleasant. As the pulling intensified, your eyes watered and you began to strain against the desire to cry out. Finally, you could take no more. “Stop, please!” you begged, leaning forward over your knees, trying not to collapse.

“Stand up,” he directed you.

As you gasped and caught your breath, you stood to look him in the eye, wondering what he’d gleaned from his intrusion into your mind. You’d been too afraid and too pained to try to reach back into his consciousness this time.

“I’ve brought you here,” he announced, “to train you to use the abilities you haven’t been aware you’ve possessed.”

You looked at him in confusion. _What_ abilities did you have? You had navigation skills, sure, but what good were they to him? It wasn’t anything unique, there were thousands of navigators in the First Order, many more skilled than you.

“Not any abilities you’ve been taught so far,” he said, “abilities you were born with. Abilities like mine.”

You staggered back a bit, trying to process what he was telling you. You thought back to the times you’d had friends when you were younger, how you had often felt their joy and explored their sadness in your own mind, but never told them, not wanting them to know the same sense of intrusion you did when Ren was in your mind. The news was stunning.

“I can’t do what you do,” you objected, trying to picture yourself opening doors and throwing people across rooms just by lifting your hands.

“Not yet, you can’t, but you will. Let us begin.”

Ren spent the next several weeks showing you how to focus your mind, how to transfer energy through and around your body, how to use The Force, the connection you had with a living power which you could now name.

As the days passed, every day was only marginally different. You rose, took a cold shower, donned your clothes, ate a boring breakfast, and trained with Ren. You ate a bland lunch, trained with Ren, and then you would both explore the surrounding environs to hunt and kill your dinner.

Ren showed you how to draw on the pent-up anger you harbored inside, much of it a legacy of your childhood; the rage you carried with you against your ‘mother’, the woman who’d adopted you as her daughter but treated you as a possession and abused you both physically and verbally for your entire life.

With that rage you learned to crush objects, bend walls, tear trees out of the ground by the roots, move bodies of water and levitate yourself to great heights.

Then Ren started working with you to draw on your passion.

And that’s when it started getting interesting.


	3. In which you encounter the dark side

You’d been lying awake nights lately, thoughts of Ren floating through your head. He was a stern taskmaster, asking much of you. His lessons in The Force were mystifying; you barely understood what you were learning and it all seemed so overwhelming. At the same time, your feelings surrounding your existence here with him were bothering you.

As the days went by, he became more relaxed and was willing to hold longer, more personal conversations with you, learning your first name – Niessa – and calling you by it while in turn allowing you to call him Kylo. He gave you more and more privileges as his level of trust increased with you. He’d even let you into his quarters one night as the two of you chatted.

There was a small black box on top of one of his crates, and something about it was drawing you near. “What is this?” you asked, resting your fingers lightly on the lid. As you did, an almost electrifying sensation traveled up your arm and into your mind. It was warm but at the same time there was something scary in the intensity and you gasped in reaction to its power.

“Don’t touch that!” he roared at you as he streaked across the room to tear your hand away from the dark case.

He twisted your arm behind your back, pulling you in front of him with his other arm across your throat.

“Don’t you EVER touch anything in my quarters again, do you understand me?!” he shouted into your ear, his hot breath drifting past your face. He was so close, you could smell his masculine scent, and something in you was responding to his power. Despite the pain of your shoulder being twisted, your core began to melt, your womanhood swelling with desire.

“Yes, sir,” you breathed out. You felt badly you had violated his privacy again; you hadn’t intended to repeat your past mistake of touching his things.

He held onto you much longer than you thought he’d originally intended, as if he was hesitating. You could hear him breathing behind you, his chest heaving, and then you felt it - his manhood was swelling against the small of your back, and you could feel yourself moisten in response.

He suddenly let you go, pushing you away, his hands clenched in fists at his side as he looked at the floor. He turned, slowly, and then spoke to you in a low tone. “Go.” It was all he said, and you fairly ran to the doors, screaming inside of you for them to hurry up as they seemed to open more slowly than you’d ever seen before.

You returned to your own quarters and fell onto your cot, more confused than ever. Did he hate you? Did he desire you? What was going on? You were very perplexed and you didn’t know how to handle him. All you knew was that you were beginning to have feelings for him. You thought of him last thing every night before you fell asleep and first thing in the morning when you woke up. You supposed that was to be expected with the way you two were isolated here – there was no one else to think about, really.

However, it was the way you thought about him, the feelings you experienced when you pictured him in your mind’s eye. Up until now, you had been convinced he wouldn’t return any feelings you may have had for him – but you weren’t so convinced any more.

~~~~~~

“Am I to become a Jedi?” you asked Ren breathlessly after a particularly difficult training session. The two of you were using the swampy environs as a training facility today, him teaching you to jump great distances from tree to tree assisted by levitation. It was grueling, and you’d nearly fallen more than once.

“No,” he said sternly.

“But I thought they used The Force this way?” you asked, remembering the tales you’d heard as a child.

“They are not the only ones, and they deny a great deal of themselves to become less than they could be,” he explained. “They refuse to embrace their passion. From passion comes great power, and with power comes victory.” He straightened to his full height when he said it. “Come, it’s time for you to learn to draw on _your_ passion,” he said as he held his hand out to you.

You took it, letting him draw you close, closer. You found yourself so near him you could feel the warmth coming off of him, the musk of his sweat enveloping you, his eyes darkening. You could feel him manipulating The Force to reach into you and stoke an ember that lay within your heart. Warmth spread through your torso, your groin, your head, filling you with a tingling sensation but also a feeling of avulsion, as if something was being taken from you, extracted from your very being. At the very same time, something dark and savage was seeping into your nerve endings.

You tried pulling away, but Ren held you tightly, and in a way, you didn’t want to leave his macabre embrace.

“Feel it,” he whispered to you.

“I feel it,” you told him, “I’m scared!”

“Let go,” he encouraged you, “let it take you over.”

You tried to do as he asked, and you began to sense the longing you held for him flow into your limbs, your mind. You began to fill with wanting, with a desire to expend your power, with rage. Your breath was heaving in you now as you held onto his hands and you could feel the level of power growing in you – you had to have an outlet.

“Now let it go,” he said as he stepped back from you.

You could feel your power in The Force intensified but you didn’t know where to expend it. You felt some anger toward him for doing this to you, taunting you, teasing you. You reached out to kick him, but he caught your leg and sent you flying backwards. The two of you began grappling, the precognitive abilities you had begun to develop helping you anticipate each of his next moves. You both were trying to outwit and out-maneuver each other, and it was a test of wills.

“Stop!” he commanded as you found yourself face-down on the ground, mud in your hair and Ren’s knee on your neck.

You stopped immediately, realizing he’d bested you and the exercise was over; you had lost to your teacher.

He removed his weight and helped you up, and as you tried to catch your breath, you took a moment to evaluate how you were, where you hurt, what you were feeling. You looked down at your clothes which were now caked with gook and wet, and realized your knee was injured.

“You did well, Niessa,” he advised you, “you have begun to learn to tap into the dark side – you’re going to need to learn to do that on your own, though. I won’t always be around to provoke you to it.”

“Where will I be?” you asked. “Where am I going with this, what will happen to me when we ever return to the fleet?”

“That remains to be seen,” he said evenly, and left you standing there as he returned to the base.

~~~~~~

Later that evening, you had washed up and were toweling your hair, trying to get it dry, when Ren knocked on your door.

“Come back later” you responded. You were wearing a second towel to cover your damp body but you didn’t want him seeing you in this state of undress. Instead, he let himself in.

Ren was dressed only in a sleeveless black undershirt and loose pants. He was barefoot, and his hair was still damp.

“I’m not dressed!” you objected.

“Good, it will make things go smoother,” he replied, his gaze making you feel vulnerable.

“Please come back later,” you pleaded, unsure what he had planned.

“No,” he said darkly as he stalked over to you. “I’ve waited long enough.”

“Waited for what?” you asked breathlessly, now shaking with fear.

“This,” he said as he tore the towel from your body.

You now stood naked before him. You were cold and frightened, and your nipples became hard nubs. You tried covering them with your arms, but he pulled them aside by your wrists and pinned them down to your sides as he came and pressed himself against you.

He leaned down and nuzzled your neck, and you could feel his soft, supple lips trace a trail of kisses from ear to ear. You groaned with desire, realizing this was it – you were crossing the line between teacher and student, and you didn’t know if you objected to it.

“Come with me,” he said softly, taking you by the hand and leading you back to his quarters. His eyes looked back at you at every opportunity across the short distance, his gaze raking over your form.

As he brought you to the edge of his bed, he placed his long fingers on both sides of your face, cupping your cheeks in his palms and placing his plush, pink lips against yours. You began to feel the rising passion within you, and you parted your lips slightly to receive his gentle tongue. He explored your mouth and you, his, the softness conveying the level of trust and intimacy that was developing between you.

“Lay down,” he instructed you, and you willingly complied with his request.

He stood over you, and you realized - you were in his bed. This was his private space, and here you were performing the most intimate act between two beings. He knelt at the end of the bed, watching you for a moment, taking your body in, as if he was assessing what he was going to do to you. He decided to pull your legs apart by the ankles and then leaned on his elbows as he inched toward you. He placed his luscious lips against your labia and you nearly came at that very moment. You could feel a finger tracing up and down your lips as he began lapping at your clitoris with his wide tongue. The finger slipped inside you, making you squirm as that sensitive spot deep in your core was begging to be caressed. You were being titillated in two spots now, and as his finger stroked your inside and his mouth sucked hungrily at your clit, you began to feel the desire build within you, but with it was coming that dark, depraved feeling from earlier – the dark side was rising in your senses as your passion was inflamed.

You could also feel Kylo’s desire though The Force. You could feel the raging want and hunger he had held back all this time, ready to burst. Your pussy began pulsing with your mounting excitement, the walls tightening as your wetness and Kylo’s saliva dripped onto the sheets beneath you. He was licking you fast now, his tongue giving you no quarter as he held tightly to your buttocks, his face buried between your thighs. You flailed in desperation, grabbing onto something, anything, and found yourself digging your fingers into his shoulders as you arched your back and your body reached its climax. You came harder than you ever had in your entire life, and you screamed with abandon as you felt the power of The Force course through you, burning paths of fire all through your body as it consumed and enervated you. 

You lay panting as Kylo rose over you to take in the sight of his handiwork. He cocked half a smile, something you’d never seen before; he seemed very pleased with himself. “My turn,” he whispered huskily as he drew his pants off.

There it was. Kylo Ren was endowed with an organ to match his physique and it was breathtaking. The size of it was enormous and it frightened you as you wondered how you were ever going to be able to accept the girth of it but you greedily opened your arms and your legs to him, ready and willing to take him.

As Kylo looked down at you his face visibly relaxed and he inhaled, preparing himself, kneeling between your thighs. You felt him lean down against your legs, and then you could feel the head of his penis pressing against your engorged labia. Silently, he reached down to grasp himself and rubbed the head of his cock around your opening, the slickness coating him well. He was teasing you, you thought, purposely drawing your level of excitement back up with his. Finally, when neither of you could stand anymore, he entered you inch by inch, his expert level of discipline keeping him from losing control and plunging into you without a care. He was filling you, and you both let out a ragged sigh at the sensation of him pressing you open, pressing against your innermost essence. He couldn’t be any closer to you than he was at this very moment, your bodies joined together.

As Kylo began thrusting within you, The Force swelled in your senses once more, but you could feel his power building within him also, and waves of passion were passing between you. His cock was stretching you, tantalizing you as every penetration generated swirls of pleasure that were spreading everywhere. You lifted your hips up to meet his pelvis every time he drove into you, hungrily clasping at his arms as you squeezed your eyes shut in ecstasy. As your excitation rose with every onslaught, he reached down to place his finger against your hard clit, stroking it as his cock continued impaling you with abandon.

Kylo was becoming darkly focused, his eyes staring you down as his ardor climbed higher and his thrusts came faster. He could tell when you were close and he reached down to hold your face in his hands and said, “You are mine, Niessa – you belong to me now, you are bonded to me, no one else.” At his words, you felt a rush of power overtake you, starting in the center of your chest and shooting all the way to the tips of your extremities – and then you came again, together with him this time.

Kylo’s head was thrown back and he roared in what sounded like agony. He had you pinned to the bed, and you writhed around his pulsing prick, his seed pumping into you over and over as you moaned through your own orgasm. You were spent, everything you had being ripped from you by the man you now considered your master.

You’d never felt you belonged to anyone before – and now Kylo said you belonged to him, and he was adamant about it. You fell asleep almost immediately, content in the knowledge you were safe and secure with the Commander of the First Order.


	4. In which you are punished for your failures

You woke in the morning next to Kylo in his bed. It took you a moment to realize where you were but when you did, you looked over to see him softly snoozing. He was lying on his belly, his head turned toward you and his arms under his pillow. He looked so peaceful, like he never did in his waking hours. You longed to reach out and touch his hair, feel his skin. You could smell his musk on him, on both of you and it was delicious. You could even still feel his cum inside you, you were still so wet. No other man had ever filled you like this, and you wondered at the virility he must possess.

He mumbled a bit and rolled over, tugging on the sheet. When it caught short because you were lying on it, he startled and sat up suddenly, appearing annoyed to see you there. “Oh,” he said simply.

“Good morning,” you said to him sweetly.

He got up, presumably to use the refresher, and didn’t look back at you as he said, “Go back to your room, Niessa.”

Was he serious? You assumed he was when he started showering, so you returned to your room across the hall to do the same. You washed carefully over your private parts, so swollen and tender were they from the way he used you last night. Your labia were still slick and you could still smell him on you. The water and soap did away with that, making you a bit wistful.

You couldn’t understand his seeming about-face this morning, but just assumed he was not a morning person.

With the exception of where you woke up, your day was like any other day; sleep, eat, train, eat, sleep. You were finally practicing with sabers today, albeit sleek wooden replicas, and Kylo was working with you to expand your openness to the dark side by teaching you to tap into your anger. He provoked you, taunting you every time you missed him, telling you that you were slow, you were clumsy, you weren’t worth the effort of him training you.

“Well I didn’t choose to come here!” you hollered back at him.

“That’s not the point, Niessa! Come on! Push that anger into your weapon!”

You did as he commanded and felt the rush of electric sensation burn in your torso and you transferred the energy to the ends of your hands, pushing the Force energy into the wooden blade. In slow motion, you watched Kylo lean back and duck just underneath your sword, then come back up on your weak side. You were overextended now, and your senses warned you he was coming up behind you. You swept the blade into place along your spine just as Kylo moved on the attack. You managed to parry just in time and the flat of the blade shook your stance, but you held fast, throwing him off of you and twisting away to bring your blade back up and under his sword arm, knocking the air out of him.

“Kylo! I’m so sorry!” you cried as you ran to where he was kneeling, trying to catch his breath. His breathing normalized, and the next thing you knew he was on you, his hand around your throat as he carried the two of you back down to the ground.

“Give no quarter!” he hollered in your face. “Never give your opponent a chance to recover and attack you! Once you have him on the ground, follow through until he’s incapacitated!”

You were stunned lying under him, his breath coming heavy in your face as you choked under the grip of his thick fingers. “Stop!” you choked out, your fingers prying at his hands. The wild look in his eyes was frightening you and you began to cry.

“Come on, Niessa! Are you a woman, or are you a little girl?” he challenged you. It made you angry, and you felt dark side energy begin to bubble in your core. You remembered your training and channeled the power into your legs so you could flip him up over you as you escaped his grasp. You followed through with a kick to his chest and put him on his backside, but he rolled through it and recovered, launching himself at you. The two of you grappled until you were exhausted and fell to your knees.

“I yield!” you cried out, putting your hands on your head.

Kylo grabbed you by the neck and pushed your face down in the dirt.

“There _is_ no yielding in battle, Niessa! You’re dead!” Kylo yelled in your ear. “Now go run the course again.”

“Yes, Master,” you answered breathlessly as you picked yourself up.

He looked at you in curiosity. “Why did you call me that?”

“You said I belonged to you,” you replied. “I’m your apprentice, am I not?”

“Yes,” he replied, “but I never instructed you to do that.”

“I will stop if you don’t approve,” you offered.

He considered your suggestion for a moment, before saying, “No, continue.”

You winked at him before you set off on your run. “Yes, Master.”

As he watched you head into the swampy woods, Kylo thought on his conversation with you, realizing he’d never considered taking an apprentice before you. He hadn’t thought that the day would come when he would no longer be the student. He remembered hearing the adage, ‘when the student is ready, the master appears.’

After dinner that night, he left you at your room and went into his quarters, shutting the door behind him. Not a word had passed between the two of you about what had transpired the day before.

~~~~~~

Kylo was a stern taskmaster, but you were learning so much. You had heard stories of force users when you were growing up – the Jedi, the Sith, but nothing prepared you for the story to be yours. As the weeks passed by, you were getting stronger, faster, more graceful, more lithe; you could sense things before they happened, hear things you couldn’t hear before, see things in a whole new way. The power was yours for the taking and it felt good. It meant you would never be a victim again. That fate was for others, not for you.

The day arrived when he came for you again.

You were dressed for bed and performing your evening meditation when he knocked at your room. You answered it, peering from behind the door to see him still fully clothed. Was he taking you on a night training? “Yes, Master?”

“Come with me,” he told you.

You followed him silently back to his quarters where he shut the door behind you both. 

“Take your clothes off and kneel,” he said, pointing to the foot of his bed. “I want to see how well you can follow commands.”

“Yes, Master,” you replied as you pulled your panties down and drew your nightshirt up over your head, folding them together and placing them under your knees as you knelt on the hard tile floor precisely where he told you.

“No cushion,” he warned you, taking your clothes out from underneath of you. “Face the bed,” he said, and you turned to face the footboard. You placed your hands on your knees to still your shaking.

“I didn’t say to put your hands in your lap, put them down,” he said with a tinge of irritation in his voice. You complied. He said nothing for many moments, the tension in the room growing as he walked around you, the only sound the clap of his boots against the tile floor until he stopped directly behind you. You were beginning to shake in fear.

“Are you wet?” he asked. You shivered at his question.

“Yes, Master,” you whispered, embarrassment in your voice.

“You’re shameless,” he accused you.

“Yes, Master.”

“You want me, don’t you?”

You hung your head. “Yes, Master.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he replied softly. You could hear him undoing his belt behind you. Was he getting undressed? Were you going to have sex now?

“However, your progress in your lessons lately has been inadequate,” he observed. “I have only a very short time left to bring your training to a conclusion, and you have not been putting forth your best effort.”

You thought about arguing with him because you felt you had done very well, and you were disappointed he didn’t agree. Your hesitation riled him.

“You disagree?” he said impatiently.

“No, Master.”

“I thought so,” he replied. “I think you need some discipline to remind you of your failings as a student and to inspire you to do better.”

You swallowed hard, terrified what that would mean.

“Lay face down across the bed,” he commanded you.

Your mind was objecting and it was keeping your body from cooperating.

“I said, lay face down across the bed, Niessa! I won’t tell you again!” he raged.

“Yes, Master!” you answered as you hopped up and moved where he told you. You lay with your face away from him, scared to see his eyes.

“I’m going to beat you, Niessa, not because I am angry with you, but because this will make an impression upon you that a lecture never could.” You could hear the clink of the metal clasp of the belt as he positioned it in his hand.

You considered pleading with him or protesting against the punishment, but you were afraid it would make it all the more difficult.

“I know you want to run, to pull away and escape, but there is no escape, there’s nowhere to run to,” he warned you. “You need to take your punishment so you can be the powerful warrior I know you can be.”

Tears were beginning to run down your eyes onto the mattress, and you knew he was right. You wanted to trust him, had to trust him.

“I’m going to begin, and I want you to tell me where you have been failing. If you don’t call out your errors, you’ll get another stroke until you do.”

“Yes, Master,” you answered, your voice wavering.

You could see from the shadows in the room when Kylo brought his hand up, wielding the belt, and you shut your eyes in anticipation of the blow to come. 

*CRACK*

As the sound rang out in the room, an explosion of pain tore across your backside, ripping a cry of agony from you.

“I was too slow to open up to my anger!” you cried out.

“Good, Niessa, yes,” he replied.

*CRACK*

“I was clumsy, I didn’t have good control of my balance!” you wailed.

“Right, what else?”

*CRACK*

“I’m not worth the effort of you training me!”

“You are when you’re paying attention,” he corrected you. “What else?” he demanded.

*CRACK*

“Agh! I didn’t follow through when I threw you off of me! Please, Master!” you begged him, the pain beginning to wear you down.

“I’ll decide when you’ve had enough, now more! What else?” he demanded again.

*CRACK*

You were now bawling, and it was difficult to form the words to answer him, but you knew you had to follow it through.

“I gave up and asked for mercy!” Your tears were now flowing without restraint.

“Much like you’re doing now,” he sneered at you, “what else?”

*CRACK*

“I gave quarter to my enemy!”

“Yes, what else?”

*CRACK*

“Aaaahhh!! Master, no more, please!!”

*CRACK* *CRACK*

“That’s for not answering me, what else, Niessa? Did the lessons not get through yet?”

“I- I- g-gave m-my oppo-opponent a ch-chance to re-c-cover and at-ttack me!” You were whining now, nearly out of energy.

“Yes! Anything else?” he demanded.

“No, Master,” you exhaled, trying to breathe between your wracking sobs. The pain was everywhere and you felt like your body was on fire.

“Good, now roll over,” he said as he set the belt aside and began stripping his clothes off.

You dreaded how much it was going to hurt when you were lying on where he had been beating you but you dreaded even more the thought of being punished again. You did as you were told, the skin of your buttocks sore and tender. You cried out in anguish.

Kylo strode over to where you lay and looked down at you in derision. “Spread your legs,” he snarled. You obeyed, and as he placed his hand over your quim and spread his fingers between your folds, you gasped in shock at how intense it felt, and you came in his hand.

“Look at this!” he marveled. “You _liked_ it! You dirty little slut, look at this!” he said as he held his hand up to your lips.

“Taste it,” he said as he slipped two fingers into your mouth, reaching down into your throat. As he leaned over you, you sucked his fingers clean of your juices. You didn’t know why you were responding like this. You should be mad, you should be fighting him, cursing him, not enjoying what he was doing to you, so much so that you orgasmed at his touch! You moaned in protest.

He pulled his fingers out suddenly with a _pop_ , and jammed them back inside you, piercing deep inside your vaginal walls to stroke your spot way up inside. You moaned even more, unable to inhibit your vocalization.

“You’re learning to give in to your passion, Niessa,” he observed, “you’re making me so proud of you.” He was kneeling between your legs now, his cock rock hard and poised at your entrance.

“Please,” you pleaded with him, “fuck me, Master.” You didn’t recognize the words that came out of you or the voice that said them. “Fuck me, please.”

He kept his gaze on your face as he silently slipped his phallus into your waiting pussy, burying it up to the hilt as you gasped in pleasure.

“Yes, oh, yes,” you sighed, closing your eyes and stretching out to grab the head board to steady yourself as he mounted you and began his long, sultry strokes in and out of your slick slit. He lifted your hips up and laid your buttocks on his thighs, eliciting fresh cries of pain from you while he kneaded the tender skin and you could feel his prick harden even more the moment he saw he was hurting you. He was getting off on it – you both were, and it didn’t take long before he was pumping you full of his cum and you were cumming along with him.

Later that night as you lie in bed with him, stroking his chest, you asked, “what does it mean that I’m bonded to you?”

“What?”

“The first night you took me, you said I belong to you and I’m bonded to you now.”

“That’s not important now, Niessa,” he said softly as he pulled you close and turned out the light. “I’ll tell you when it matters.”


	5. In which you are tested

“Niessa, come here,” Kylo called to you from the crates he was repacking.

You were just rolling out of bed and putting your nightshirt back on, your backside still sore from the beating he gave you last night. You were afraid he was going to punish you again because you could see he was holding the small black box which you had touched a couple of weeks ago, resulting in his displeasure.

“I haven’t touched it since you told me not to,” you objected.

“No, Niessa,” he shook his head, his countenance soft, “you’re not in trouble.”

He was opening the lid for you as you leaned over to look at the mysterious contents. What you saw within was fascinating. Inside, on soft black fabric was nestled a shard of crystal about the size of your thumb. It was blue and it glowed from within with a soft luminance.

You looked at each other as he extended it toward you. “Go ahead,” he said, “you can touch it now. It wants you to, that’s why you were drawn to it.”

Blinking at him for a moment to be sure he meant it, you hesitantly extended your hand forward and touched a fingertip to the small stone. The same electrifying sensation as the first time traveled up your arm and into your mind again, only it was stronger now. The intensity in its power was even greater and you felt like you were being overcome with its energy. Ren placed his free hand on your elbow, steadying you.

“What is it?” you asked in amazement.

“This is the basis of the weapon you will carry the rest of your life,” his face growing serious as he closed the lid and set it aside. “You’ve been diligent and obedient, and I felt it was time. You earned it.”

You were so happy to hear that all the hard work and all the painful punishments were worth it – you had met Ren’s expectations and he approved of you. You were overwhelmed.

“Thank you, Master! Oh, thank you!” and not knowing how else to show your gratitude, you knelt at his feet, your head inclined.

“Stop, Niessa – get up,” he replied, sounding embarrassed with your expression of appreciation as he pulled you to your feet. You were worried that you had made him uncomfortable but he was smiling at you. “Get dressed and I’ll show you how to build your lightsaber,” he instructed, heading into his refresher to get cleaned up.

You raced through your morning routine, eager to create your very own weapon. The lightsaber itself was a frightening tool of war, but you hoped that as you gained more experience with it you would find it less intimidating. What you did know for a fact was that the lightsaber was a weapon of great import, the hallmark of a force user.

Kylo left his quarters door open and had you join him inside where he had set up a crude workbench. There were a variety of small components, parts and wiring, as well as the crystal shard.

“Open it,” Kylo said, indicating the small black box. Once again, you opened the container to gaze upon the stone where it lay shining with energy. “It’s called a kyber crystal,” he remarked. “It resonates with force energy and it will bond to you,” he said as he brushed his hand against your cheek, “as you have been bonded to me.”

You shivered at his words and looked between him and the stone. You saw your future was coming into focus before you; you had Kylo to guide you and the kyber crystal to power your weapon. You felt like you had it all.

“There is one last thing before we can start,” Kylo advised you, turning you to face him. “You must bleed your kyber crystal.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, puzzled by his statement. “It’s a stone, how do you get blood from it?”

Kylo looked at you with intensity. “We are going to imbue this stone with all of the emotions through which I’ve been training you to channel your power; anger, fear, hatred, pain. These will we use to break the structure of the crystal so that we can channel the dark side to power your lightsaber.” He sounded resolute when he said it, and you were convinced of his sincerity if not the veracity of what he was telling you. “Let us begin.”

Kylo stood over your shoulder as you sat at the workbench.

“Now, take it in your hands, and whatever you do, don’t let go; not if it’s warm, not if it’s bright, nothing. For no reason, take your hands off of it, do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” you replied.

“Good. Now, I want you to close your eyes and draw deeply from the well inside of you where every negative emotion you’ve experienced is haunting your soul,” he was leaning close to your face now, his mouth next to your ear, and he was almost whispering these things.

“When you find them, I want you to pull them all up into your consciousness, harness them, and then push them down into the shard, direct all of your fear and anger and hatred into the crystal. Are you ready?”

“Yes, Master,” you replied, your voice shaking in fear and anticipation.

“Good, now focus,” he said, his hands resting on your shoulders as the crystal lay in your cupped palms.

You went back in time, back to your childhood with all the pain and misery your supposed ‘mother’ had visited upon you in the years you’d been at her mercy, the threats of sending you back to the foundling home when you misbehaved, how everything wrong with you was due to your heritage because she couldn’t possibly be at fault for how you were turning out, the insults, the name calling, the beatings, the threats of abandonment… how she’d forced you to terminate a pregnancy when you were just a teenager because she didn’t want to be embarrassed by your situation, and how she scoffed at your sorrow for the loss of the child’s life… the years of pent-up rage came boiling to the surface, tears escaping your lids as you continued focusing.

“Good, Niessa, that’s it, more,” Ren prompted you softly, not wanting to break your focus.

You called up the times you’d been threatened by General Hux on the bridge, the times he’d backed you into a corner and promised some painful punishment or leered at you when he’d find you alone, his lustful gaze raking across your figure as his hands would roam to your buttocks or breasts and you were too afraid to push him away or ask him to stop… even the fear Kylo had instilled in you, imprisoning you for over a week and then kidnapping you and bringing you here, away from everyone and everything.

You were shaking now, sweat pouring from you, and as you felt the rising fire within your body you remembered your lessons in channeling the Force.

“Now make that energy coalesce, Niessa,” Kylo directed you, “internalize that, and feed that energy into the stone.”

Your jaw clenched as you gathered up the power your body was creating and aimed it way down inside of you and then pictured that energy leaving you and entering the crystal shard. You could feel the stone becoming warm and it felt as if it was growing, expanding, consuming you. You were scared, but you remembered what Kylo said about dropping it. You held on for all you were worth as the room around you began shaking and you felt like something was about to crest as there was a sound like an engine being shut down.

Suddenly the room around you, Kylo, everything just disappeared and the scene around you as everything went white, silent – you could neither see nor hear anything, all you sensed was your soul and the crystal. There was a sound like crackling thunder then and you were spinning, everything around you was spinning, too, and then it all suddenly stopped and you were back in the room next to Kylo. You looked down and opened your hand, and there the crystal was, glowing fiercely and pulsing and it was red now, not blue anymore. As your fingers closed back around it, you felt spent and you slumped unconscious on the workbench in front of you.

You woke some time later lying in Kylo’s bed, wondering how long you’d been out. Then you suddenly remembered and shot up straight in the bed, noticing your hand was empty. “My crystal!”

Kylo was sitting at the workbench and turned to look at you. “Get up, it’s time to make your lightsaber now.”

You approached the bench and Kylo rose to make room for you. On the bench lay emitters, power cells, circuits, shrouds and activators, as well as your newly bled crystal, glowing almost a faint pink color.

“Here,” Ren said, handing you an empty hilt. “Let the Force lead you to the components to use, your crystal will tell you what it needs.”

Kylo stood behind you as the two of you worked, he guiding you in the proper process of channeling the Force in order to select a casing in which to place the components, appropriate switches and wiring harnesses, and then the aesthetic pieces to bring the saber to completion.

You felt emboldened by his guidance. His mentoring of you was comforting as you focused on the feelings coming from the crystal, selecting one item after another. As you laid them each in place, you sensed a feeling of satisfaction and maybe even pride coming from Kylo.

“Make sure you have the emitter matrix with the vent side out, otherwise it will explode when you activate it,” he cautioned you.

“Yes, Master.”

When you finally felt like it was complete, you laid it on the work bench and stepped back.

“Are you done?” your teacher asked you.

“I think so, Master,” you answered him.

“You can’t _think_ so, Niessa, you have to _know_ so. You have to be certain your weapon will not fail you. You must keep this with you at all times.” Glowering at you, he stated with authority, “This weapon is your life now.”

“Yes, Master,” you replied somberly, “it’s ready. _I’m_ ready.”

“Then activate it. I want to see what you’ve done.”

You picked the polished gunmetal hilt up off the bench, stepped back several feet and flipped the actuator switch.

The blade hummed to life at a length a little longer than your arm, and the color glowed a faint magenta.

Kylo looked a little disconcerted at first but then nodded slightly to himself.

“Is something wrong, Master?” you asked.

“No,” Kylo said non-committally, “I just expected it to be a different color.”

“More like yours?”

“Yes, something more like mine.” He was still trying to figure what to make of it.

“This is so… so incredibly powerful,” you marveled as you swung it carefully, practicing your forms.

Kylo nodded slightly. “ _You_ are powerful now.”

“Thank you, Master. That is because of you.” You powered down the saber and moved to where he was seated so you could stand between his powerful thighs.

“No, Niessa, that power is yours,” he said, taking you in his arms. “I’ve just showed you how to use it.”

“Was that what made you bring me here?” you asked as you looked into his dark brown eyes.

“Yes,” he replied. “I saw that you had responded to the kyber crystal in _mine_. That’s when I knew you could learn to be a powerful Force user. Now, let’s get you out there and go practice your forms with a real lightsaber.”

~~~~~~

At the training ground, Kylo showed you how to adjust the length and intensity of the blade. You had been learning the first three Forms for the past several weeks, and it was now time to learn how those movements would translate to actual combat. For the next several weeks, Ren put you through one battle scenario after another, duel after duel, until one day you went to leave your room to meet him in the hangar for your usual lesson, but your door was locked. You thought you heard Ren talking to someone else, but that wasn’t possible – there was only the two of you here. You knocked on your door to attract his attention, but the voices simply stopped.

You reached out with the Force, trying to find him, find any other beings that might have been standing there, but you could feel no one. You sat down to meditate instead, kneeling quietly on your cot, clearing your mind and connecting with the force.

Your door suddenly slid open to reveal Ren standing at the entrance, looking grave. “Come with me and bring your saber,” was all he said.

Always obedient, you stood and followed him and asked no questions, your lightsaber clipped to your hip where you were becoming increasingly comfortable carrying it.

Moments later, your found yourself at the hangar, but the door was closed. Ren stopped at the doorway and turned to look at you.

“Niessa,” he began softly, “there comes a day when a warrior must be tested. For you, that day is today.” You were riveted by his words and your hands became clammy.

“Inside this room,” he continued, “are six men. They are my bodyguards and brothers in arms, and you will face them, without me.” Here, he swallowed hard and hesitated for a moment. “Defeat them,” Ren said, “and you will have passed the test. You will join them at my side. Should they best you,” he paused, “I have instructed them, - they can have you.”

Your eyes had gone wide in fear. “Have me, Master? What do you mean? What do you mean, ‘have me’??” You were becoming hysterical.

He backed you into the opposite wall, his arm across your throat. “You are a woman, Niessa, you know what I am telling you. If you don’t want to fall prey to their hands, you had best fight for your life.”

He stepped back, reaching for the door release. The hatch slid aside, and Ren guided you by the arm into the room. You turned back to him and called out, “Master, don’t do this to me, please!” But the door slid shut between you, the only thing you could see being his face in the window. His lip trembled for a split second as if he didn’t want to do what he was doing, like a parent who regrets the discipline he must mete out to a child.

You turned and took in the room where you saw the men, all large, muscular and intimidating. They were fanning out, each one holding a unique weapon, frightening and twisted version of clubs, axes, vibroblades and blasters and you recalled your training, trying to decide on the best strategy as you stalked around each other.

One with a vibroblade approached, stalking toward you at a rapid pace. You wanted to retreat, but you knew, eventually, he would just catch up to you so you stood your ground, letting him make the first move. You were prepared, and stood in defense, allowing him the first strike. You parried him, spun your blade under his and sent his sword arm over as you came back up under him and slashed his chest. He growled in anger and then pressed the attack again, an overhead blow that you barely held before it could hit you in the head. It was so close, you could hear the snapping of the electricity his weapon was generating. Drawing on your dark side connection, you channeled the energy into your arms to throw him off and away from you. He flew a few feet and landed on his back as one of his companions joined the fray.

This one had a club, not quite as formidable as a vibroblade but still deadly. Since you had the longer reach, you took the offense this time, feinting at the foe but he deftly escaped your attack. You pressed forward, lunging at his chest and then sweeping down at his legs, putting him off balance. He spun around and as he did, you force-pushed him and sent him stumbling over his own feet, giving you the opportunity to slice him up the back but you only got so far before another foe’s vibroblade stopped your lightsaber’s path.

This one was much taller than you and when your eyes met his mask your fear almost broke your focus. You channeled the fear, as well as the fear of what awaited you should they get their hands on you, and you kicked sideways at him, sending him a few steps away but just for a moment. It was enough to allow you to recover. You swung wide, trying to get contact with the blade before it could get close to you. Your saber nearly grazed the tip of his weapon and then he swung it in a slashing move as you just managed to duck aside as the blade struck the floor next to you. He was overextended, and you pressed your advantage, spinning with all your strength and directing force energy into your blade as it met his forearms. He screamed as the blade seared through his armor and started burning his forearms.

You got distracted and didn’t sense the blaster bolt coming up behind you until it was too late. You felt the searing vibration in your back and screamed as you lost all muscle control and collapsed to the floor as your lightsaber slipped from your hand.

“Too easy,” Kuruk said, holstering his blaster as he came to stand over you. You were lying on your side, breathing heavily and trying to make your limbs move any way you could, but they just wouldn’t cooperate. You could see the one you hit in the arms and the one you cut in the back helping the one you cut through the chest, the three of them limping out the hangar door.

“You cheated,” Cardo said to his companion as he holstered his own blaster, “but then again, don’t we both!” and the two of them began laughing as the third one sheathed his axe and they loomed over you, crowding out the light.

“I think I want her pretty little mouth first,” said Ushar, unfastening his trousers.

“You know what that means, Cardo,” Kuruk said as he knelt next to you and used a small knife to start cutting away your clothing.

“No, no!” you tried crying out, but the vocalization only gurgled in the back of your throat, the paralysis of the shot you’d suffered still gripping you. You were now naked and cold, and you could barely move a muscle. The men were also naked from the waist down and all three of them were sporting erections, ready to do the most horrific things to you and there was nothing you could do about it.

Kuruk lifted you under your arms from behind, your head flopping to the side, and sat you on his lap as he leaned against a storage crate. “I hope our brother Kylo doesn’t mind I’m taking this part first, I bet he hasn’t had a chance at it yet!” You prayed that didn’t mean what you thought it did, but he spit in his hand, and you could feel him moving around underneath you – he was lubricating himself and you could feel him pressing himself against your asshole. You started screaming “No!”, but it just came out as whining.

“I don’t think she likes that idea,” Ushar said, standing over you with his sweaty cock and balls in your face. You tried shaking your head. You wanted to turn away so he couldn’t touch your mouth, but your body refused to obey. 

“That’s too bad,” Kuruk snickered as his cock was now pressing into you, painfully penetrating the opening that had never been touched in this way before. A strained cry came from you as he sunk his thick member deep in your back entry, and Kuruk was groaning with pleasure. “Oh, that’s so tight!”

“Okay, enough,” said Ushar as he straddled you and pulled your head back as he squeezed your cheeks. “Open wide, little girl,” he taunted you as he shoved his manhood into your mouth. “No teeth! I’ll smack the shit out of you if you so much as graze my dick with your fangs.” Your mouth was full of him, trying not to gag as he began stroking into your throat.

“Let me in there,” complained Cardo as he knelt between your thighs, “I want some juicy pussy! I haven’t had any this young since the last time we were on Zeltros!” he said salaciously as his penis entered you as well.

“Hey, take it easy, Cardo!” Kuruk complained as he and his companion were fighting for access to the same area, and it was hell for you. Your tiny body was being invaded on three fronts by these men, all at the same time, and you felt like you were going to explode from the pressure of having two cocks in such a small area simultaneously. Sometimes, one stroked in while the other stroked out, but sometimes they both invaded you at the same time. Tears were now streaming down your cheeks and your vocal cords began to operate again. Your cries of shame and anger were getting louder and more intense, but the men were showing you no mercy, violating you over and over.

“Hey, let’s switch,” Kuruk suggested.

“I agree,” said Cardo, “I want to try all three before I decide which one I’m going to cum in!”

As Ushar pulled his penis from your mouth, you begged for release, hoping they would be receptive. “Please,” you pleaded, “let me go!”

“Aw, what’s the matter little girl?” asked Cardo who was now putting his wet member into your asshole. You were grateful at least there was more lubrication this time.

“She’s loving it, I don’t care what she says,” Ushar laughed as he thrust himself into your cunt. “She’s sopping wet!”

Now Cardo and Ushar were pounding away at your lower half while Kuruk stuck his cock on your lips. It had been in your ass, and you tried to move your mouth away, terrified of having to taste it. He wrapped his strong hands in your long locks and yanked your head back, straining your neck. “You’re going to take it, bitch, and you’re going to like it!”

They went on like this, invading your body and humiliating you for what seemed like hours. Kuruk was now in your cunt, Ushar had himself in your ass, and your mouth was full of Cardo’s penis.

“I think this is where I’m going to cum,” Cardo announced as he grinned at her menacingly. “Her mouth is sweet, and I want to see her swallow it.” Your eyes flew wide at the idea of taking the cum of anyone but Kylo.

Kylo. You remembered your Master, how he was abandoning you to these monsters. How could he? You were pretty sure he didn’t love you and you didn’t know if you loved him. But you thought he held you in enough regard not to do this to you. Where had you failed him?

“She’s thinking about Kylo now,” Ushar panted between strokes.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” Kuruk said, stroking your clit. “I don’t think he’s going to want you after this, girlie.”

You realized they were probably right. Your eyes closed and tears escaped them as you gave up and let them have their way with you, not caring what happened to you anymore. You were sore and tired, and disgraced.

“Ungh,” Cardo grunted, “I’m gonna give her my load, boys,” and he grabbed your face as he began pumping spurts of cum down your throat. You gave in and swallowed it, just wanting to get it over with as Kuruk’s teasing of your clitoris and the overstimulation between your pussy and your ass finally brought you to a climax, and you were ashamed as you found yourself creaming all over him.

“Oh, she likes me boys, she’s cumming for me,” and Kuruk came himself as you hung your head in shame.

“Mmmm… that feels so good,” Ushar said, enjoying the feeling of your body spasming in orgasm, and soon you could feel him jerking underneath of you as well as he pressed home with his own climax.

Having used you for their sport, the men each extracted themselves from you one by one as they spanked your ass, slapped you across the face and twisted your nipples. You were spent, full of sperm and covered in filth and sweat. You felt subhuman and all you wanted to do was die. You laid down on the floor as the men began dressing and bantering with each other and simply curled up in a ball, fluid leaking out of both of your holes and the taste of all three of them in and around your mouth.

“Get a good night’s sleep, little girl,” Kuruk taunted you, “the others will want their fill tomorrow!” His jibe filled you with fear at the idea that Kylo might let the other three have a go at you after they recovered from their injuries.

You crawled to where your lightsaber lay discarded, your fingers having been unable to hold on to it, and pulled it back in your grasp, giving you a small sense of security. There you lay on the cold floor for some time, not knowing when or if you cared to get up and leave when Kylo opened the hangar door. He strode quickly across the floor carrying a blanket, and gathered you up in it in his arms. “How could you do that to me?” you asked as you looked at him in anger, tears rolling down your cheeks.

His chin quivered and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“I had to, Niessa,” he replied softly, “I had to know you were strong enough, that you were worthy.”

“Worthy of what?!” you demanded. “That wasn’t a test of anything but my sanity!” and you shut your eyes and began bawling your eyes out as Kylo lifted you up and carried you back to your quarters.

He stood you up in your refresher and left you there to take a shower. When you came out, he was gone, leaving you alone with your pain and your sorrow.


	6. In which you discover Ren's plans for you

You woke late the next morning, sore all over and still bleeding from some of the tears where you’d been roughly used. It hurt to empty yourself, and you knew from the way you'd been injured that you’d never be right again. Feeling betrayed and confused, you climbed back into bed.

Kylo must have sensed you were awake since he came in to check on you.

“Go away,” you said quietly as you rolled over, unwilling to look him in the eye.

“Let me check you out, I want to see how you’re doing this morning,” he said.

“Go away!” you shouted this time, trying to hold the tears back. “I don’t ever want to see you or talk to you or have you touch me ever again! Get out!”

“No,” he replied simply, in his usual way. He walked around the other side of your cot to look at you and knelt down next to your face, his arm resting on his knee.

“Niessa, this life requires sacrifice,” he said softly.

“Well, I didn’t choose this life!” you screamed at him.

“No,” he replied, “but The Force chose it for you, and you’re here now.” He shifted, standing up to look down at you. “Did you think you would be able to hide that sensitivity forever, that someone, somewhere wouldn’t have realized what you were? You would have had to have chosen a path at some point, Niessa.”

“But it should have been my choice!” you yelled as you sat up, gripping the sheet tightly to your breasts to cover your body. “It wasn’t for you to pluck me out of my position with the First Order and drag me down here and subject me to this!”

“I didn’t drag you here, you dragged yourself into this situation when you meddled in things you didn’t understand!” he yelled, grabbing his lightsaber from his hip and pointing it at you. “You’re only mad because you lost,” he sneered. “You wouldn’t be saying any of these things had you bested them yesterday.”

You were silent for a moment, because you knew he was right; you’d felt you had everything and were on your way to become something, become someone important in the galaxy. Now you were just some half-trained, used-up whore sitting in an abandoned military base in the middle of nowhere.

Kylo came to sit next to you, brushing a tear from your face.

“My own masters subjected me to trials like these, some much worse,” he said, his visage clouding with sad memories and regrets. “But it makes you strong, Niessa. You’ll never fear men again because now you know the worst they can do to you, and you _survived_ it!”

You reached over and slapped him across the face. He merely closed his eyes as your hand struck him, then looked at you with patience. “I didn’t need to be treated like a piece of meat to know I’m a strong woman,” you objected. Your lip trembled and you started to cry. “I thought you cared for me on some level, you said I belonged to you, I was bonded to you!”

“And I do, Niessa, you _are_ mine, and we _do_ have a bond,” he said, turning to face you and taking your hands in his. “Do you think I didn’t feel what you were feeling, that your failure wasn’t _my_ failure?” He looked pained, and for the first time he closed his eyes and opened your bond, letting you see him inside. It was the day before, and Kylo was watching your battle through the small glass window leading to the hangar. You could feel the torment of Kylo’s pain as he watched you be outmaneuvered by your opponents and the guilt he felt that your skills weren’t sharp enough to stand up to the Knights, the horror of watching you be stripped naked, the nausea and chills he experienced as you were molested, the shame he felt subjecting you to such a trial, the tears he’d shed after he’d brought you back to your room as he cried himself to sleep.

“I know it felt like it, Niessa, but you weren’t alone,” he tried comforting you, tucking a stray lock of hair behind your ear.

You sat with your knees propped up and your arms wrapped around them and hung your head. “I can’t do this,” you whispered to him.

“I know it doesn’t feel like you can right now. Much is being asked of you in a short amount of time, but you need to stay committed,” he said. “I believe in you.”

“But I don’t know if I believe in me!” you said, placing your hand against your chest, pleading with him.

He stood, straightening his jacket. “Niessa, you need to know something,” he said, sounding grave. “The Supreme Leader knows about you. He’s given me a short amount of time to train you and if I can’t produce results, if I can’t show him you have potential to become a valuable asset to the First Order,” here he hesitated, fussing with his gloves before looking back up at you, “he’s going to have you executed.”

“What?!?” you exclaimed, horrified at the prospect. “But I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, swallowing hard. “He can’t have undisciplined, unaligned force-users running around where they could pose a threat to the organization. Do you understand,” he said as he leaned over you, “this is why you were locked in the detention center for a week after I found you? Because I needed time to work on convincing him to allow me to train you, so that you could survive?”

His revelation explained so much. You realized now, he’d been hiding you, protecting you from Snoke until he could persuade him he’d make you one of _them_. “That’s why you brought me here?” you confirmed.

He nodded slightly, rising back up to his full height. “I’m sorry to tell you, if you aren’t willing or able to become a loyal member of my entourage, I have orders from Snoke to…” and he paused here, unable to say the words.

You nodded in reply, understanding unequivocally what he was trying to say. You lay back, terrified at the prospect and unsure what this meant for the rest of your life. “I need to be alone,” you said.

He looked down at you and nodded, leaving you by yourself in your quarters.

As you lay there, you considered what your options were. Could you escape? You tried to think about where you were. The longer you’d been here the more you’d come to believe you weren’t on Vodran after all, but you didn’t know where you were. You couldn’t take Ren’s ship because you didn’t think you could pilot something that big by yourself. The Knights had to have a ship, but you weren’t willing to tangle with them again, and there were six of them, so that just wasn’t a feasible option, either. Besides, they might have left already. You could run away from the base, maybe go somewhere else on the planet to find transport, but you didn’t know if this planet was even inhabited, never mind if there was any transport to be had. No, you would have to rely on Ren to get you out of here.

Once you were aloft, maybe you could convince him to drop you somewhere, or maybe you could hijack the ship and force him to take you somewhere like Coruscant where you could get lost in the environs of the huge city-planet. If worse came to worst, you could let him take you back to _The Finalizer_ and just escape from there. All you needed to do was bide your time until the day came to leave the base.

After leaving you alone for a few hours during which time you got cleaned up and dressed, Ren returned and led you back to the hangar.

“We’re going to continue your lessons with Form Four,” Ren stated, “Ataru. This form is known for its aggression and acrobatics. Let us begin.” He showed you how to attack your opponent with overwhelming force in order to end the conflict quickly. 

“Get in, attack furiously, get out,” he instructed you. “You need speed and agility for this one, so make sure you’re drawing on your dark side focus to increase those abilities.”

You and Ren attacked each other with rapidity, using somersaults to get behind each other and leaps to support your offensives, but soon you were exhausted. Ren called a halt to your lessons for the morning and as he headed toward the hangar door he suddenly stopped dead.

“You shouldn’t be making plans to run, Niessa,” he said, facing away from you. He then turned to look you straight in the eye. “There’s nowhere to go, and you won’t be able to escape. The only thing that will bring you is punishment or death. Am I understood?”

“Yes, _Master_ ,” you spat at him. He lifted his eyebrows at you for a moment before turning and leaving you alone in the empty hangar bay. As you looked around, remembering what had happened to you here the day before, you made a promise to yourself. You would never be molested by any man against your will again.


	7. In which you are disappointed

Two more weeks passed and Ren taught you two more forms. At the end of one particularly gruelling session, he sat you down, the two of you kneeling and facing each other, tired and sweaty.

“Niessa, we must return this week,” he said, his face serious. “I have to provide Supreme Leader proof that I have trained you sufficiently to meet his demands, which means I must put you through the test again when we return.”

Your jaw dropped open and you began shaking your head.

“No!” you shouted as you jumped up and began backing away from him. “Kill me now, because there’s no way in the hells of the universe I’m going to be gang raped again!”

“That won’t be the punishment this time,” he said grimly as he stood to follow you. “Supreme Leader Snoke will deliver the punishment. It will be execution.”

You placed your hand over your mouth as if to stifle the scream you couldn’t form in your throat as tears began falling from your eyes. Ren looked almost as torn as you were and he came to put his arms around you.

“Niessa, I’m so sorry I put you in danger,” he almost whispered, his voice tight as if he was trying not to lose control. “My hubris in thinking I could train you myself has put you in a terrible position.”

You pulled away from him and looked around the hangar where you had practiced so many long weeks and months. You’d spent countless hours in here doing everything Ren had asked of you, but you realized with terror that it may not be enough.

“What can I do?” you asked, turning to look at him.

“Let me think on it. In the meantime,” he said as he came to take your hand and lead you toward the door, “we need to get some rest. We have only a few more days to prepare and we need to make the best of them.”

~~~~~~

Later that night after you’d showered and were doing your evening meditation, Kylo came to your room, tapping softly at your door. You let him in, trying to cover your private areas as they could be seen through the thin material of your nightshirt.

“There’s no need for that, is there?” he asked in his characteristic low voice. You were trembling a bit as he took your hands in his and held them to his chest. “This may be our last chance to…” he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. You nodded at him in understanding, and he led you gently to his quarters.

He’d actually prepared the room in a way, as much as one could with a dearth of supplies. There were some small lights he’d placed around the corners of the room while the overhead lighting was turned low. The sheets and blankets were turned back and he held you close in his arms next to the bed.

His ebony locks fell forward as he bent to kiss you deeply with his plush, dark pink lips as his tongue traced gently within your mouth and you shivered as his hands reached up inside your nightshirt to tease your hardened nipples. Suddenly, he lifted your nightshirt off of you and his mouth traced down your neck and collarbone to nuzzle between your ample breasts. He was kneading them, his thumbs teasing your firm nipples.

You gasped and began lifting his shirt, and he accommodated you by pulling it off. You cupped his delicious pectorals, teasing his nipples as well. His expression was ravenous and as he looked at you, his raven tresses fell over one eye and he lifted you onto the bed.

He ran his hands up and down the length of your naked body as if he was trying to memorize your form. You loved being with him, despite what you knew of him, and you were going to miss him. You realized this may be the last time you ever made love to him.

His mouth was on yours again, hungrily seeking to drink you in, and you found him kneeling between your legs, his manhood pressing urgently against you, the head already slick with moisture much as your womanhood was, as evidenced by the fingers he was stroking through your folds.

Without warning, without a word, he was plunging into you, releasing pent-up desire as he groaned in ecstasy and he began slowly driving himself home within you. Each thrust brought a cry of rapture from you as you folded your legs around his sleek waist, drawing him into you, trying to keep him as close to you as possible.

He propped himself up on both his arms and looked down at your face as his pelvis pumped away, his thick cock filling and stretching you each time he entered you. He opened his mouth as if to say something, like he had something to tell you, but the words never came. Instead, he rolled onto his back, bringing you with him so that when you were on top, his prick was still firmly ensconced in your canal. 

“Ride me,” he told you as he reached up to fondle your breasts. You were so full of his cock and it was buried so deep in your belly that it hurt, but you loved every minute of it and you rocked your hips so that your clit was rubbing against his groin with every downward grind. Your hands were intertwined with his as he supported your weight while each bounce of your hips brought you both closer. 

Kylo had closed his eyes and you could tell he was about to climax. As your own heat mounted, you could feel the dark side build within you, and you looked down to see Kylo sitting up to cling to you, darkness in his eyes, and something else – a glimmer of gold at the outside edges. As your orgasm crested, you cried out, screaming in ecstasy and Kylo joined you, his growls of passion filling the room as your power merged together in an explosive climax and you held each other as tightly as you could without losing your breath.

He collapsed back onto the bed, carrying you with him so that you found yourself lying on his chest, the both of you panting and gasping for air. Eventually, you calmed down as you felt his seed trickle down your thigh, and you rolled off of him to lie in the crook of his arm, weakened and spent.

Kylo traced his finger down your arm that was draped across his chest. “I’ve truly enjoyed my time here with you, Niessa,” he said as he lifted your fingers in his. “I want you to know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to share myself with someone. It’s been lonely.” He lifted your hand to his mouth and kissed your knuckles, savoring each peck. It made you warm towards him because it was difficult to be mad or hold a grudge when he was soft and gentle this way. It was like he was a whole different person. You decided to take advantage of the opportunity to try convincing him not to take you back.

“Please, Kylo. Can’t we find a way for me to return to my former position with the First Order? For me to go back to being a navigator?” you pleaded with him.

His face became hard, and he placed your palm over his mouth, kissing it as he lay mute. He then abruptly pushed you off of him and stood up, turning his back to you. “It’s time for you to go back to your room,” he announced. You looked at him in surprise, stunned that he would treat you this way after the passionate interlude you’d just shared together but his tone brooked no defiance, so you put your nightshirt back on and left his room without a backward glance.

Back in your own bed, your head a flurry of emotions, you decided to meditate to calm your mind and heart. As you did, you reached out to Kylo in the darkness, but all you felt was silence.


	8. In which you leave Kylo Ren

Morning found you unable to face the day. You knew your days were numbered, your Force skills were questionable, and Ren wouldn’t entertain the chance of giving you a way out. You couldn’t find the motivation to move, so instead you lay on your cot, staring at the ceiling.

A knock sounded at your door, and Ren let himself in. “Get dressed, we’re leaving.”

“Already?” you asked, remembering he’d said there were still several more days.

“No sense in waiting, a couple more days wouldn’t make a difference,” he replied, sounding embittered. “Best to get it over with sooner than later.”

“Alright,” you replied, dazed at the prospect of not having more time as Ren left you to your own devices.

You showered and then packed what few belongings he’d given you, putting your First Order uniform back on. Your svelte new physique, formed in the crucible of training with the dark side, left the uniform hanging strangely on your frame. You belted on your lightsaber which had become such a part of you recently, despite the knowledge that you might not even have a chance to use it.

It wasn’t long before Ren came to collect you and take you back to face Snoke. “Ready?” he asked as he extended his gloved hand to you. Dark circles were noticeable beneath his eyes and for a moment, you thought you saw his chin tremble. You took his outstretched palm, wrapping your fingers in his and walking back to the shuttle together. Your legs started to fail you, and you leaned against him as you attempted to regain your footing. Soon, you were belted into the co-pilot’s seat next to Ren, numb and silent.

Ren was hushed as well, keeping his face straight ahead as you lifted off the planet leaving the swamps and clouds behind, and you flew on in the quiet void of space for several hours. You noticed Ren checking the comms unit every once in a while, and you busied yourself by meditating upon the forms, one by one. The ship suddenly dropped out of lightspeed.

“Get up, now,” Ren said to you sternly after shutting the comms unit again.

“What’s the matter?” you asked.

“Come with me,” he replied breathlessly as he grasped you by the arm and took you aft. He stood you in front of a hatch and had his helmet in his hands. “Niessa, I never told you how I felt about you,” he stammered, “and it’s not fair to tell you now, but I can’t let you die.” He was agitated now, a wild look in his eyes. “I’m not doing this because I don’t care about you, because I do, but this is the only thing I can do to save your life.”

Ren opened the hatch to reveal an escape pod.

“What? Where am I going?” you asked incredulously.

“Somewhere you’ll be safe, somewhere I can hide you from Snoke.”

“But-“

“But nothing, Niessa! Please, you have to trust me,” he pleaded, then reached down and kissed you, as if he were trying to pull all the life you had out of you and to put all his life into you at the same time. When he stood up, he took his helmet and handed it to you. “Put this on,” he ordered you, jamming the bulky mask on your head. It smelled faintly of the warm scent you’d come to take pleasure in.

“And take this,” he said, producing a message disk and tucking it inside your jacket. You felt it was ironic, since that’s what had gotten you into this mess in the first place. “Ask for the General, and don’t let anyone else take it from you.”

“Kylo, I…” you began but couldn’t finish the sentiment.

“I know,” he replied softly before steering you into the escape pod, no bigger than a small refresher.

“We’ll meet again someday,” he said from behind you, “I promise.”

All you could do is nod at him, such shock you were in at the turn of events. You watched his face harden as he closed the hatch between you and in seconds, the firing jets exploded, sending the pod jettisoning into space. There were no controls, but it seemed to be pre-programmed and took off on its own, soaring through the quiet darkness of the void.

You were terrified you would never land but after only a short amount of time, you saw small fighters surround the pod. They looked like Resistance ships – X-Wings if you remembered right. They looked like a rag-tag band of vehicles painted all different colors, very unprofessional. As one pilot in particular caught sight of you, he seemed excited, and you realized he must have been thinking he’d seen Kylo Ren. He was talking excitedly into his comm unit and pointing towards the pod. You were praying he wasn’t getting permission to fire.

Soon enough, the trajectory of the pod shifted, and you could tell the module was being pulled now as opposed to being propelled, and you found yourself brought by tractor beam into a landing bay. It was quiet for several minutes and there was no movement but several people eventually approached the pod, some with guns drawn. You figured it was only precautionary so you didn’t draw your lightsaber. In fact, you thought about trying to hide it in your jacket, but you knew they’d find it eventually; better to just hand it over in the beginning.

The hatch popped open and you faced four armed soldiers as well as a small retinue of officers, including several women, one an older woman with an elaborate hairstyle and a working officer’s uniform.

“Come out with your hands up, Ren!” one of the soldiers shouted.

Tentatively, you raised your hands and stepped out of the pod, realizing your worst fears, aside from Snoke: you were on a Resistance ship. You silently cursed Kylo, because now you were as good as dead, anyway.

“That’s not Ben,” the older woman said as she approached you. You stood only a few inches taller than she, and she reached up to grab at your – Kylo’s – helmet. You jerked away, but a couple of soldiers grabbed your arms to hold you so she could take the mask off. As she did, your dark brown hair fell around your shoulders. Now you knew how Kylo felt when he took his mask off; it was a very vulnerable sensation.

“Who the f-?“ one of the soldiers began but thought better of it when the woman shot him a look.

“Who are you?” she asked softly.

You couldn’t answer, so you just stood there, frozen in place. She looked down at the helmet with what looked like sadness. You were trembling and trying to draw on your training, but all of these people, this ship, this situation was too much. You looked around for an escape but there was nothing. However, there was something about looking at this woman that made you feel safe, that calmed you.

You squirmed uncomfortably as one of the soldiers had his blaster pointed right at your head. He had dark eyes and dark, messy hair. He looked like a smart aleck and you knew he’d never survive as a First Order officer. You thought about pulling his blaster from him, but it was the other three you didn’t know if you could manage after that. “You answer her or I will blow you away, bit-"

“Poe, knock it off,” the woman ordered him.

The soldiers began frisking you and took your lightsaber, then yanked your jacket open, lifting the message disk from you and patting you down everywhere else. 

“The message disk is only for the General,” you said.

“Which General?” the foul-mouthed soldier demanded. 

“I can bet I know who,” the lady said. “May I see, please?” she asked gently, taking it from the soldier who’d taken it from you.

“Thank you,” she breathed, sounding as if she’d waited for it like it was a long-lost treasure. “Why don’t you come with me and we’ll see it together, shall we?” she asked.

You looked between her and Mr. Messy Hair. He still snarled at you but seemed like he was willing to obey her as she turned and looked back at you expectantly. You followed her to a ready room off the landing bay, and Poe and another soldier followed you both in.

She went to sit in a seat behind a large desk, message disks and maps cluttering the surface and she set Ren’s helmet to the side among them.

“Are you thirsty? Can I get you anything to drink?” she offered.

You shook your head no, not wanting to concede anything to her. All you wanted was for her to see the message as Ren requested and then hopefully get out of here.

“Where were you coming from?” she asked?

Something about her made you want to trust her but still you stared at her desk, saying nothing.

“We can make her talk, General,” Poe chipped in. “I would dearly love the chance to do that,” he said threateningly. Your jaw set when he threatened you and you crossed your arms, reacting defensively.

“Poe, I think that’s enough, why don’t you go back to the hangar and find something that needs fixing,” the General suggested.

“I have something right here that needs fixing,” he said, sticking his gun in your back.

You’d had enough. Drawing on the fear and anger inside, you drew Force energy together and pushed him backwards into the door. You heard him hollering in surprise, and as you opened your eyes, you saw the General looking down at you in awe, her mouth agape.

“Poe. OUT.” she commanded her soldier.

“But General!” he protested.

“Or I’ll let her do it again. Now, OUT! Both of you!”

Resigned to her commands, Poe and his companion left you alone with her. Looking at you suspiciously, the General inserted the message disk into a slot in her desk and a small holovid of Kylo appeared. He was dressed only in his jacket and pants, sans helmet. You both gasped audibly, looking at each other in a moment of solidarity. The message then played.

“Mother.” he began, “If you are watching this vid, I am hoping you are also in possession of my…” and here he hesitated, “a young lady named Niessa Loran. She’s Force-sensitive. I was foolish enough to think I could train her these last few months. Unfortunately, Snoke has demanded I bring her back for the trials and I don’t think she’s strong enough. If she fails, he’ll kill her.” His voice caught, and he looked down for a moment. “I can’t let him do that, so I am entrusting her to your care-“

At this you stood and objected loudly, “NO!”

The General stopped the playback. “Please, sit down,” she asked sternly. You complied, mostly because you wanted to see the rest of the holovid.

“I beg you not to mistreat her or turn her over to the First Order,” Kylo continued. “If you have any love left for me,” he pleaded, “please help her.” The vid went dark, Kylo’s image shimmering into nothingness.

All the stress and strain of the past several weeks got to you – you broke down in tears, burying your face in your hands. Kylo had abandoned you, left you for good, forever, in the hands of the enemy. You wanted to die.

The General came around her desk, tears in her own eyes, and put her arms around you. “I know how you feel,” she said, “I miss him, too.” 

You looked at her and began crying all over again, having no control over your emotions at the moment. And then you put it together for the first time: this was Kylo Ren’s mother. Even Kylo Ren had a mother, and this was she. His own mother was a Resistance General and you never knew.


	9. In which you are held by the Resistance

Although General Leia Organa was present for the interrogations, they didn’t go easy on you. Poe was in your face, asking the same questions over and over for hours, just in different forms or a different order as spit flew from his mouth. This had been going on for days. They would come to your cell, harass you to talk to them, and then go away. What they didn’t know was that you were disciplined, a dark side warrior, and you weren’t going to break for them.

“What are you doing here? Who are you _really_ working for? What do they want? What do you do for the First Order?” he asked, ad nauseum. Instead of answering him, you closed your eyes and dropped into a meditation which infuriated him even further. “Aw, dammit!” he yelled, throwing his chair across the room. “We’re not getting anywhere this way! We’re going too easy on her!”

“Poe, stop,” Leia reprimanded him. “I agreed to this because you led me to believe it would be productive and not turn into a torture session. You haven’t gotten anything from her yet, and it’s not working”

“She’s _lucky_ it’s not a torture session, but it oughtta be!” he raged. “We lost good people, General, people better than her!” he said accusingly, pointing his finger very close to your face. You held stock-still, staying as mute as you had been the last few days.

“Look,” she said, “Let me try, and if I can’t get anywhere with her, it’s over.”

“But, General!” Poe objected.

“No, that’s enough,” she said, glaring at him.

You felt Leia’s presence approach yours and she sat in a chair across from you, settling in quietly. After a few moments, you could feel her in the Force, and your breath caught in your chest. You tried to stay calm, not prepared to meet another Force-user in these circumstances. She tried reaching out to you, a warm, gentle presence in the ether. You nearly broke the connection, but something intrigued you, and you stayed engaged.

She started to show you things, things you’d never known before; she showed you Kylo as a teenager, it was clearly he – his face softer, though sad; Kylo as a tween with a man who had his hair color but also a cocky smile Kylo never sported; Kylo as a child, playing happily with a big bear-like creature.

You reached back out to show her Kylo now; wielding his lightsaber, giving orders on the _Finalizer_ , teaching you the ways of the dark side…

She broke off the connection abruptly, and it startled you both out of your respective meditations. She gasped, and Poe became enraged, lunging at you.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?” he screamed in your face, making you flinch from the breath and saliva being spat at you.

“Poe! She didn’t do anything!” Leia shouted to him, holding her forehead with one hand and pulling him back with the other. “You’re done here!”

You backed into the wall behind you, tired and worn out from the interrogation and the stress. It all became overwhelming and as you felt nauseous, you ran for the vacc tube where you emptied your guts of the little amount of food you’d eaten today.

The General came and put her arm around your shoulders, bringing you a towel to wipe your face. You gave her a tight smile and then rinsed your face and mouth, sitting down hard onto the bench that served as your bed, catching your breath.

“It’s over, Poe, she’s not going to talk and I’m done trying to force her,” the General decreed.

“Fine,” he responded angrily, “but if anything bad comes of this, just remember, I tried to save us from her!” He slapped his security chip at the door controls to be let out and stormed away angrily.

Leia shook her head as she sat down next to you. “Stubborn and temperamental, just like Ben,” she reminisced. Ben was the name you’d heard her call Kylo. You looked at her questioningly.

“Ben is his name,” she sighed, “his _real_ name. Before he left us. Before Snoke got to him.” Gripping the edge of the bunk, she looked down at her feet which barely reached the floor. She was a slight woman, and you wondered at the difference between her and Kylo. “Let’s get you out of here,” she said with finality.

Leia let you out of the cell to be greeted by two of the soldiers you’d met in the landing bay, one dark and serious looking and one heavy-set with a beard. “Boys, I’m taking her out of here, you’ll just have to tag along,” the General advised them as she took your arm and turned her back on their protests. She leaned on your arm more than guided you by it, and you could see she was older than her years. Her difficulties must have taken time off her life cycle.

“Let’s get you down to the medbay and have you checked out,” she advised as you both headed down another corridor. You looked down and felt like you should have been wearing shackles; you were a prisoner, despite the comparative freedom you were being afforded.

The General approached the officer in charge of the medbay and discussed the situation with him. “I’ll be outside,” she advised as she turned to leave, but you grasped Leia’s arm and shook your head at her, terrified to be let out of her sight. She was the only one you were close to trusting at the moment and you weren’t going to be separated from the only person who had made an effort to protect you.

Leia recognized the fear in your face and tried consoling you. “No one here is going to hurt you because they know they’d have me to deal with,” she said, "now, go on and let them take care of you,” she told you firmly, pushing you between the shoulder blades in the direction of the waiting officer.

“Come with me, please,” he intoned lightly. You looked back one last time to see Leia giving you a thumbs-up, whatever that meant. Were they going to take your thumbs off? Would that be the punishment?

The officer led you to a stark, white room with an examination table and laboratory equipment. There was a small medical droid there as well, and it came to life as the officer entered.

“We’ll be giving you a complete physical as the General requested, and you’ll let us know if you have any health issues we should be aware of.” You merely stared at him, not uttering a word.

The meddroid came over and began taking all the usual measurements, drew some blood, and looked in your eyes, ears and throat. “Would you please get undressed?” The officer asked as he directed you toward a changing area with a robe draped over the top. You shook your head ‘no’ at first. “I’m authorized to use force upon you if you are not cooperative,” he advised you gently. You took a moment to reconsider and then complied resentfully, exchanging your uniform for the robe you pulled tightly around you.

“Please lay here,” he pointed at the exam table as you returned in the robe. Again, you hesitated. What if they tried to torture you? Would you be able to fight your way out? “Miss?” the officer prompted you, his voice betraying that his patience was wearing thin. You approached the table hesitantly, alert for any sudden movement on the part of him or the droid. You knew what droids could do to torture people, it was a first line of offense in First Order interrogations, and you hadn’t given them anything yet, so maybe this was their next move.

You were now sitting on the table and the doctor stood next to you, trying to appear gentle. “You seem extremely nervous,” he observed. “Would you like a sedative?” he asked. You wanted to take him up on the offer, so overwhelmed were you at this point, but you were afraid he’d poison you instead, so you shook your head in the negative. He simply shrugged his shoulders and produced a scanner in order to check you over. “Please remove your robe,” he requested, and you lowered it to your lap, assuming he was going to check your chest first. He seemed irritated, but worked with what you gave him. When he was done, he directed you to place your legs up so he could give you a female exam. You were terrified, and drew on all your training to stay in the moment and not give in to the fear. You could feel him touching you in your core, gently but with authority. “All done,” he announced not a few moments later and allowed you to get dressed.

General Leia was waiting for you in the vestibule of the medical suite. “I’ll be in touch shortly should any issues arise,” the doctor advised her.

“Very good, thank you,” she said, taking you by the arm again as she headed you back the way you’d come from. “We’ll have to get you some civvies,” she said, looking at your First Order uniform, “we can’t have you running around in this,” she whispered between the two of you as she pinched a section of your sleeve and tugged on it. You decided to ignore her for the moment and instead took in your surroundings, trying to remember your way through the ship.

A young woman, her hair pinned up on both sides of her head in little buns, greeted General Leia at her quarters’ door. “You wanted to see me General?” the young lady inquired.

“Connix,” she greeted the young officer enthusiastically, “this is Niessa Loran, she’ll be joining us for a while. Come in, let’s talk.” Turning to the two male officers, she said “Dismissed,” and turned her back on them without a second thought.

Connix appraised you skeptically as the three of you entered the General’s quarters, her eyes hardening as they came to rest on the First Order emblem gracing your uniform while Leia opened her copious closets and fished around for something for you to wear. You stood silently, staring Connix back in the eye, your chin up in the air, unwilling to give ground to a woman you considered rabble.

“A-ha!” Leia exclaimed, coming out with a set of overalls that looked about your size. She held it up to you, checking the length against your height. “I never could wear these,” she commented, “always too long for me.” You wanted to turn your nose up at the unkempt clothing, but you hated to treat her kindness with a lack of gratitude. However, you balked when she reached up and tried unfastening your jacket. You covered yourself and pulled away, unwilling to give up the security of your uniform. It was the only thing you had left to separate you from these Resistance rats.

“Niessa, you can’t stay in that uniform,” Connix admonished you. “If you’re going to stay here, you need to fit in with the rest of us.”

Your lip trembled and the truth began to set in; you were stuck here, with the Resistance, maybe forever. You would not be going back to the First Order. The two women softened as they saw how the realization that you were no longer free had hit you hard.

“We’ll do everything we can to help you fit in here, but you need to help yourself,” Leia pleaded with you. You set your jaw and nodded minutely, then let Leia take your jacket and pants from you. As you let go of the garments, your fingers trailed down the sleeve and a tear escaped your eye. Connix took them from Leia and whispered to her. You heard something about ‘dispose’ and ‘incinerator.’

You stood in your underclothes and stocking feet, feeling exposed and vulnerable, as you took the overalls from Leia. They were big on you as well, but not so much they inhibited your movement. Connix came back with a pair of shoes in your size, having taken your officer’s boots for comparison and probably disposing of them along with your uniform.

You felt everything was being taken from you; your career, your identity, your relationship with Kylo, it all disappeared overnight and you were alone in the universe. Recalling the day you’d picked up Ren’s lightsaber, it occurred to you what a steep price you were paying for a moment of curiosity.


	10. In which you receive a gift

“I found this on her,” the lead medic advised Leia as she sat across from him. He pushed a small clear case across the desk to her. It contained a round disk that appeared to have held some type of solution or mineral at one time.

“What is it?” the General inquired, worry furrowing her brow as she imagined it to be an incendiary or listening device.

“It appears,” he said with a certain level of admiration for First Order ingenuity, “to be a contraceptive device. They’ve come a long way with their technology, I haven’t seen one like this before.”

“Oh!” Leia replied, very relieved but also feeling a bit silly.

“The problem is,” the medic continued, “it appears to have expired several weeks ago.”

“Well, I doubt she’ll be doing much dating here for a while, anyway, so I don’t think she needs a replacement,” she responded sarcastically, still grateful the device wasn’t something meant as a weapon.

“That’s not why I’ve brought you here, General,” the medic interjected, his tone insinuating she’d missed the point completely. “The device failed her within the last week or two. The young lady is with child.”

Leia blinked at him for a moment or two and sat back in her chair, trying to take in the news. A realization began to dawn on her, and a hesitant smile spread across her face, her focus drifting.

“General?” the medic prompted her, trying to get her attention back.

“Hmmm?” she responded. 

“What do you want to do about it?” he asked.

“We’ll do what you normally do, she’ll have prenatal visits, and we’ll need a nursery… it’s wonderful,” she whispered softly, still slightly smiling.

“General, she’s First Order, we can’t keep her here,” he objected.

“Captain, she may very well be carrying my grandchild,” Leia said, her voice firm as she jammed her finger into his desk. “She stays _here_.” And Leia got up and left the room in a huff.

~~~~~~

“Sit down, my dear,” Leia took you by the hand and sat you across from her in the privacy of her quarters. Since yesterday, she’d procured some tunics and pants for you, and you were a little more comfortable in clothing that fitted you better. You still hadn’t spoken a word since the first day.

“I just came back from the medic’s office,” she began. That alone was enough to cause you concern as your brow knitted, though she was smiling so you weren’t sure you should be worried. “He gave me some news, which I hope you’ll find happy.” You were even more intrigued now.

“You are pregnant,” she smiled at you.

You were stunned and couldn’t move for a moment. Your mouth dropped and you worked at catching your breath as you tried to take in the news.

“Your birth control device wasn’t working anymore,” she said in explanation.

You looked down, trying to do the math in your head. You realized that yes, you were probably due back at the ship’s clinic by now to have it replaced, but you’d gratefully had your cycle after the horrible incident with the Knights. It had to have been that last night…

“The medic said it was probably in the last week or two,” she volunteered as she saw you trying to make sense of everything.

As the import of your situation fell over you, that you now carried a small spark of your master in your womb yet you were alone in the world without him, the thought of having his child filled you with sorrow. You cupped your hands and placed them over your face, breaking into a torrent of tears.

“Oh, no! No, no, sweetie,” Leia tried consoling you, pulling you to her bosom. “This is a good thing!” As you looked up at her in confusion, she was ebullient. “You’re giving me a grandchild!” While you could see the joy it had brought to her, at the same time you saw a life where you raised Kylo’s child without his father. You couldn’t do it.

“You’re not alone, Niessa, I am here for you,” she consoled you. “Many people will be here for you, don’t you understand?”

You continued crying, the sorrow overwhelming you as you got up to leave. You tried opening the door to the General’s quarters but it wouldn’t open. You felt so trapped, so powerless. You began to rage, directing your anger at the lock on the door, desperate. It began to snap and crackle with electricity as you crushed the components in your attempt to escape. But even through your anger, you heard Leia’s voice calling out to you through the Force: ‘Niessa, don’t do this.’ That message, delivered so softly, helped calm you, and you gave up, leaning against the door frame, sobbing.

She came over and put her arms around you, stroking your long hair where it fell down your back. “It’s alright,” she tried comforting you, “we’ll get through this. There’s always hope.”

~~~~~~

As you lay in bed that night in a room just down the hall from the General, thinking about the new life budding in you, you recalled the last time Kylo had touched you. You were so grateful it was a sweet memory, instead of like the other times that had been so… you didn’t want to think about that now.

You considered your future, where you would be in a year, five years, ten years, twenty years. You couldn’t fathom trying to live the life of a mother alone. Kylo would never know his child, his child would never see its father’s face. You couldn’t bear for the three of you to be split apart like this and you laid your head on the pillow and wept for the life you’d never have.

The Resistance ship you were on soon landed on a beautifully forested planet, but you weren’t privy to its name, still being kept ignorant in order to reduce your risk to security. Leia continued to keep you close to her, and Poe even insisted on fitting you with a tracking device. Should you leave the relative proximity of the compound you would set off an alarm, bringing a cadre of soldiers to retrieve you, and you would be incapacitated. You worried it would hurt the baby, and you didn’t relish the idea of dealing with an overzealous Poe and company, so you put any thoughts of running away out of your mind. 

As the days dragged on, you dealt with morning sickness and fatigue, your body trying to come to terms with what was happening to it. In a way, you cursed Kylo for impregnating you. He’d filled you with his child and sent you away, leaving you to deal with the consequences. Then again, his expectation was that you couldn’t get pregnant; he knew the contraception protocols used by the First Order. Timing just wasn’t on your side in this case, and you knew in your heart there was no way he could have known when he left you behind that you were pregnant.

But you were. As days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, Leia tried to get you to talk to her, but you weren’t willing to open up. You spent your time in your room, reading or meditating. But you were tired of feeling trapped; first by Kylo, now by his mother and your baby. At least the prospect of Leia becoming a grandmother was keeping you safe for the moment, yet you wondered in horror what they would do to you after your child was born.

One morning, you felt it for the first time – a flutter of life. The baby was moving, and you were overjoyed. Wanting to share the moment, you rushed next door to General Leia’s quarters, knocking furiously. She opened the door for you and you rushed in, grabbing her hand and placing it over the spot you’d felt the little one reach out for you. She stood still, holding her breath and waiting – and there it was. Her face broke into a look of awe and you both shared a huge smile and a hug as tears streamed down your faces. However, a shadow of fear overcame you as you thought of how much Leia was getting attached to her grandchild, and you asked her in a near-whisper, “Are you going to take my baby from me?” as you held your arms protectively around your belly.

Leia looked at you aghast, as if it never occurred to her. “What? No!” she protested gently, sitting you down next to her and putting her arm around you. “I would never separate my grandchild from its mother,” she said reassuringly as she tucked a stray piece of hair behind your ear. “Don’t fret about that right now. The only thing you should be concerned with is taking care of your health and the health of the baby,” she said as she looked at you with concern. “Niessa, I’m worried about you, you’re not eating much and you’re not sleeping well,” she observed.

“I’m sleeping fine,” you lied as you looked down and stroked your expanding abdomen, not wanting her to know you lay awake nights trying to bond with the baby or attempting to reach out to its father through the Force.

“Young lady, your eyes tell another story,” she said, leaning back to inspect your face in detail. “The baby needs nourishment, too.”

“I know,” you acquiesced, “it’s just hard, I have no appetite.”

Leia sighed. “Please try,” she pleaded. “I’ll talk to the medics and see what they can do for you. In the meantime, out, let’s go.” You looked at her in confusion. She took your arm gently, pulling you with her as she headed down the hallway. 

Eventually, you reached a hangar bay which led to the outside, and she pushed you through the door, remaining behind. “Go take a walk and get some fresh air,” she ordered you, closing the door behind you.

You felt lost, and you wanted to shrink into a little ball, surrounded as you were by the hustle and bustle of the busy hangar. There were droids moving about, crates being loaded and unloaded, people shouting, repairs being performed. You shrank against the wall and put your head down in an effort to avoid being seen, but you were rather conspicuous with your growing belly preceding you everywhere.

You made your way out to the edge of the hangar where you saw trees, deciding to at least get some fresh air out in nature, careful to pay attention to the markers that would set off the proximity alarm you wore on your ankle. You walked alone for a while, eventually sitting on a fallen log near a small copse of trees. The birds sounded beautiful and you were grateful to have the opportunity to see such beauty. You realized you’d never have seen this had you stayed with the First Order and you were also coming to see a different side of the Resistance, much as you didn’t want to, finding it hard to continue staying aloof from everyone.

Eventually, you let the Wookie, Chewbacca, come sit and play games with you occasionally. He taught you to play a dice game called “sabacc,” but you didn’t enjoy playing the other game with the creatures that moved around the board. He had a bad temper and would get very angry if he lost. Sometimes, though, Chewbacca would look at your belly and then tilt his head quizzically. You wondered what he was thinking, if he was remembering when Leia was pregnant with Kylo. “Yes, this is Kylo’s baby,” you said to him one day, patting your tummy. He grunted and shook his head. “Yes, it is,” you argued, and he protested. It was then that you realized. “Ben. Yes, it’s Ben’s baby,” you answered, and he snuffed and guffawed in delight. But to you, he was still Kylo.

The little blue droid was a good companion and liked to play games as well, and the little orange one was funny. He looked like you felt – big, round and wobbly. The gold one, however, was annoying; he was full of unwanted advice, worrisome inquiries and downright idiotic statistics.

“Did you know, Mistress Niessa, that fifty-three percent of all human births result in a male child?” he informed you one day. “You have a slightly greater chance of having a little boy than a little girl. Oh, to have another baby Ben around! What a delight!”

“Please, C-3PO, I really don’t want to talk about it right now,” you begged, not wanting to discuss your condition with a droid.

General Leia was generous with you, often sitting with you in the evenings as you kept a silent vigil. Your hands would stray over your belly to stroke the child growing within, and she would tell you about her pregnancy with Ben, how dark his hair had been at birth, how he cried so often as an infant, how large he was, how she’d been in labor for three days. You were horrified – the thought of giving birth to a child at all had you terrified.

Your time had nearly come, and you now just waddled where you walked, wearing some of Leia’s old robes because none of the clothes fit you anymore. The sensation of carrying this baby made you feel like you were about to be split open. You had trouble sleeping, trouble breathing, trouble doing everything. You just wanted the baby to come already so you could have your body back.

“The last few weeks are the hardest,” Leia consoled you as she walked with you one day. You stopped to take a rest, and that was when you felt it – a small, warm trickle of fluid from your nether region. You inhaled sharply in shock and looked down to see a trail of liquid drip down your leg and you grabbed Leia’s hand.

“What is it, Niessa?” she asked, her voice full of tension.

“It’s my time,” you said, frightened, your eyes wide.

You were taken back to the medbay, the facility quickly becoming a frenzy of activity as you were hooked to monitors and given pain medication to ease the process. It went far smoother than you’d expected, and within hours, you were delivered of a large, healthy baby boy with a head full of raven black hair. “Kyron,” you said, holding him to your breast to let him nurse. It was the happiest and saddest day of your life, and you fell asleep with him in the bassinet next to you, wishing somewhere, somehow, Kylo knew of his son’s existence.


	11. In which you discover the nature of your offspring

Kyron was a fussy baby, apparently just like his father. He cried near day and night, and were it not for Leia and the nurses she provided, you would have lost your mind the first few weeks. He nursed like he was starving, pulling your hair and flailing at your breast as a child possessed. And you supposed that he was, conceived in the shadow of the dark side as he had been. You thought back to the night of his conception, how you and his father had poured your dark side energy into each other, never realizing the result it would have.

You had first felt the Force flicker within Kyron while he was still in your womb and many an evening you had lain awake sharing the Force bond between mother and child. You could feel the dark power as a small trickle at first, becoming stronger the bigger he grew. You didn’t want to tell anyone for fear they would take him from you, or worse, but you suspected you could not hide it from Leia.

Despite this, Kyron’s grandmother doted on him and she found every opportunity to cradle him, but at the same time you could see the occasional look of concern on her face as she held him, gazed into his eyes and observed his behavior. You thought you sensed her seeing Ben again, and that she knew without being told that your baby boy was begat in the dark side. At those times you would rush to take him back from her, lest she decide she had to stop evil in its tracks. In fact, as Kyron grew, you became more concerned for his safety, fearing someone would judge the child of Kylo Ren was as evil as his father, and that killing him now would save the galaxy a lifetime of sorrow.

Many nights, when Kyron wasn’t screaming himself to sleep, you meditated deeply in the Force, reaching out for Kylo and begging him to hear you, see you, sense you… but you weren’t strong enough. Your training was incomplete and you had no idea how to accomplish such a feat, but you were determined to continue trying.

One day when you were nursing Kyron, Leia came by to visit. He was fussing, his mouth bouncing around your nipple as he banged his head into your breast and wailed.

“Ben wasn’t a good nurser, either,” she observed, stroking the baby’s head. “You might just need to express him some into a bottle,” she advised. Sometimes, you appreciated the wisdom she imparted to you, but other times you wish she would not compare Kyron to his father so much. He was his own child, and it just made you miss Kylo all the more.

When she left, you tried something you hadn’t since Kyron was in your womb – you were going to connect with him through the Force. He was sobbing and wailing as usual, and at moments like these you wondered if he wasn’t crying out for his father.

You sat with your knees bent and propped him up on your legs, facing you, and shushed him as well as you could. “Kyron,” you sang to him, rubbing his belly to burp him and stroking his cheeks while you sent tendrils of Force energy to your infant son. You felt a tiny impression like he was latching onto you, much the way he did on your breast as Kyron answered you back with tentative bursts of frustration and need, his expressions coming through as uncontrolled, jagged and desperate. In answer, you sent him waves of comfort, trying to soothe him, and eventually, he began to calm. His eyes were fixed on you and you smiled at him, showing him all the love you could, and you were happy to see you were finally able to do something to help your child.

Kyron took to calling for you this way now when he was hungry, or tired, or needed his diaper changed. It would come as a tickle to your senses, a feeling that was often petulant and anxious, but many times he would do so instead of crying, which was a welcome change.

Leia began to notice the difference as she observed the silent communication between mother and child, and she started giving you sidelong looks of disapproval. One day, she approached you about it.

“Niessa, your bond with Kyron is sweet,” she said, “but I want to caution you about using the Force with a baby.”

You cradled Kyron to your breast as he nursed, hungry as always, as you eyed her with suspicion. Maybe she was just jealous she hadn’t been able to connect with Kylo like this. “Leia, I appreciate your concern, but he’s my child and I want to raise him the way I see fit,” you said, bucking her authority for the first time. She was taken aback but acquiesced.

“Alright, Niessa, but be careful,” she cautioned you.

You were indignant. You were trained in the dark side, your child was conceived in the dark side, and you were going to raise him to be strong in the dark side like his father. This was your life, and your child’s life was yours to mold according to your own values – it was what his father would want for him as well. Should Kylo ever come for you both, you wanted him to know you still honored your commitment to him as his apprentice and that your son would follow in his footsteps. There were even days when you imagined father and son ruling side by side and your heart swelled with pride. You would hold Kyron up in front of you and look in his eyes, picturing his future, his father training him with a lightsaber, his little arms and legs working to keep up with his sire. You would do your job as his mother to ensure he lived up to the legacy of his father, no matter what.

~~~~~~

"Leia, she’s training him to become a little dark side demon,” Poe complained to the General as he pointed in the direction of your quarters.

The older woman sat at her desk with her face in her hands, frustrated with the situation before her. “What do you want me to do, Poe?” she demanded of him. “I can’t take him from her, I promised her I wouldn’t.”

“How about you stop her!” he exclaimed.

“Stop her from what, bonding with her own child?” she asked, exasperated. “He’s only two months old, he’s still nursing, I can’t separate them.”

“Look, General, I know you’ve been through a tough time with Ben, I know you have, but you can’t let that cloud your judgment where this child is concerned,” he said with frankness. “She’s dark side, he’s dark side, this baby is a product of the dark side. What do you think is going to happen? You’ve been holding out hope for Ben, and what do we have? Kylo Ren! You hold out hope for this baby, and who knows what we’ll have.”

Leia rose slowly from her desk with a look of pure anger on her face. Poe was afraid if he’d been closer to her, she would have slapped him.

“How dare you,” she growled in a low tone.

Poe backpedaled, realizing he’d crossed a line. “General, I’m sorry, I just-“

“There are some things about the Force you don’t understand, and unless you do, I suggest you keep your diatribes to yourself. Now get out of my office,” she hissed at him.

“I’ll just, um, General, I’m sorry…” he trailed off as his slunk out of the room.

Leia sunk into her seat, despairing of the situation in which she found herself. She loved her grandson with all her heart but she was afraid that as much as Ben had been imbued with the dark side as a child, his own child would be even more so, and it frightened her. She’d already lost so much over her family’s brush with evil; Luke, Han… she couldn’t bear to lose Kyron, too. She realized her only choice was to rescue him, to turn him to the light, but how? Luke was stronger than she and even he couldn’t help Ben; how was she going to help Kyron, especially when his own mother seemed determined to breed her son into the next Kylo Ren? Then she remembered what she’d told Niessa when the young woman had cried upon finding out she was pregnant – “There’s always hope.”

~~~~~~

“General Hux,” the Captain addressed the superior officer as he entered the bridge. “You have an incoming transmission from Supreme Leader Snoke.”

“In my ready room,” the pale leader replied as he strode from the bridge. In the privacy of his office, Hux watched the image of Snoke materialize before him.

“General Hux,” the ghastly vision intoned, “we have received intel of great import, and I need you to act upon it before it becomes a problem.”

“Of course, Supreme Leader, and what is this information?” Hux asked in his snivelling voice.

“It has come to my attention that a child has been born, a child with great power,” Snoke uttered in his oily voice. “However, the infant is currently in the possession of the Resistance. This cannot be allowed to continue.”

“Who is this _child_?” Hux squirmed with distaste at the term.

“It is the offspring of our own esteemed Kylo Ren,” Snoke replied, drawing out the young man’s name.

Hux started, taken completely aback by the revelation. But then the cogs in his mind started turning. “The girl… Loran…” he mused.

“The very same,” Snoke intoned, tenting his fingers, his arms resting imperiously on his throne.

“What would you have me do, Supreme Leader?” Hux asked with relish, his anticipation of revenge toward his rival blooming in his evil heart.

“Fetch the child and bring it to me,” he replied with intention, “I will either bring this youngling into our fold… or slaughter it.”

“As you command, Supreme Leader,” Hux replied, his expression expanding into a grin at the thought of destroying something dear to Ren.


	12. In which you take flight

Captain Phasma stood in General Hux's office, resplendent in her chromium armor but growing impatient while she had waited for Hux to arrive back in his office.

“Why have you called me here, General?” the embittered officer inquired of her superior as he strode casually through his office doors.

“I have a mission for you, Captain, and it will require a measured approach,” he began, sitting down behind his desk. “It seems our dear Commander Ren has put a former officer of ours in a delicate situation.”

“And what situation would that be?” she asked with suspicion.

“Apparently, he got her with child and then left her in the hands of the Resistance, who we have good reason to believe are on D’Qar in the Outer Rim territories,” Hux said, bringing up a holoprojection of the galactic region in question. “Supreme Leader wants to remove the babe from the influence of that rabble and bring it into our possession instead,” he replied.

“I see,” she said, not really understanding the fuss, but willing to undertake the task nonetheless. “What of Ren?” she asked.

“According to Supreme Leader, Ren knows nothing of the situation, which is typical,” Hux said, taking the opportunity of insulting his colleague. “For now, he intends to keep it that way.”

“And what of the mother?”

“Corporal Loran, formerly of our bridge crew. If she comes willingly, so be it. If she resists,” Hux paused, smiling, “kill her.”

~~~~~~

Kyron was getting bigger now, no longer a newborn. He was still an infant but was sleeping a bit more at night, especially since he was now able to reassure himself of his mother’s presence, even when you were out of his sight. You would lie in bed, his nursery in the alcove next to you, and feel him calling to you, just to reassure himself you were still there. You still would get up when he fussed because you didn’t want him to feel you didn’t care enough to make the effort to tend to him in person. He smiled at you more now, as well, though he still nursed voraciously. He was a tall baby and seemed to be growing by the day.

He went everywhere with you and was adored by many in the Resistance. Seeing a sweet, helpless baby in the midst of war brought a smile to many a fighter’s face. However, just as many would turn their backs to you upon hearing whispers of Kyron’s parentage or rumors of his dark nature, making you cautious about letting anyone outside of your immediate circle have access to him. That meant only Leia, the two nurses, the doctor, Chewbacca, the droids and Kaydel Ko Connix. Conversely, you did your absolute best to avoid Poe Dameron at all costs, his resentment for your child no secret.

One day you found Dameron lurking in the hallway as you were leaving your quarters, looking as if he had been eavesdropping. When you stopped dead at the doorway, he glared at you and being afraid of confronting him, you clasped Kyron close and retreated back into your quarters, shutting and locking the door, opting to stay inside. You didn’t understand what would prompt a full-grown man to stalk a helpless little baby but your maternal instincts were flaring up inside you, along with the Force, and the two were combining to prepare you to be a fierce defender of your child. 

In the meantime, you called Leia to your quarters, unwilling to leave and face Dameron again. She arrived, flustered but happy to have the opportunity to see Kyron.

“What’s going on?” she asked, bouncing Kyron in her lap as she sat on your bed.

“He’s out there, waiting for us,” you told her, wringing your hands and pacing the room.

“Who?”

“Dameron,” you replied, your face a mask of worry.

“There’s no one out there, Niessa,” she responded, disbelieving you.

“He was there earlier when I went to take Kyron for a walk,” you tried convincing her.

“Oh, don’t worry about Poe,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “He’s a lot of bluster.”

“Leia, please don’t make light of this. He’s been talking,” you said adamantly. “Some people glare at Kyron now, people who used to be kind to him are now avoiding him, and that’s Dameron’s doing.”

The General couldn’t disregard your concerns because she knew it was true. She shared something else she knew.

“Poe may not be your biggest problem, Niessa,” she confided, handing Kyron back to you. You looked at her anxiously as she took a deep breath, and you could tell she was regretting to tell you what she had to say.

“We’ve heard things through our spy networks. Nothing specific, but we think the First Order may be looking for the baby,” she uttered, her voice cracking.

You inhaled sharply and brought Kyron to your bosom, covering him with both of your arms as if that alone could keep him safe. You turned away from Leia, on the awful news she’d brought you.

“We need to send you away,” Leia said sadly, stroking Kyron’s fluffy raven tresses as the infant sucked at his fist. “I can’t discuss the particulars with you, but we’re probably going to have to evacuate soon and it may be best you not come with us. I think it’s time we found somewhere to send you, somewhere more permanent, somewhere you can raise your child.”

You looked at her in sorrow. You may not have always agreed with Leia, but she was the closest thing you had to a mother now. She’d comforted you and held your hand as you’d given birth to Kyron, she’d provided you material and emotional support, and she truly seemed to care about the both of you.

“Where will we go?” you whispered.

“I’ll find a place for you,” she said as reassuringly as she could, and kissed Kyron before she left, waving goodbye to the both of you.

You walked Kyron back and forth, caressing his back, trying to form a plan. As you looked down at your tiny progeny, you considered with bewilderment the position he was now in – hated by some, hunted by others, all for the sake of his father. The only thing standing between him and danger was you and Leia, and you prayed she would do right by the both of you.

~~~~~~

In the shadows of the D’Qar twilight in a clearing at the edge of the woods, a lone figure waited, cloaked and silent. It was approached by another, words whispered, and items exchanged hands before the two parted and the stars fell with the night over the forest.

~~~~~~

“Get up,” Leia was whispering in your ear.

You roused easily these days, ever vigilant for the sound of your babe.

“What is it? Is Kyron alright?” you asked, your son being your ever-present priority.

“You need to get moving. I’ve got you transport, but you have to go, _now_ ,” she said insistently.

You rose and dressed, throwing as much as you could into several travel packs.

“No time for that!” Leia impressed upon you as she swaddled Kyron and handed him to you.

You grabbed what you’d already stuffed into bags and followed her as silently as possible down the hallway. Kyron was starting to fuss, but through your Force connection you sent calming sensations to him, rubbing his back and kissing his sleepy face.

She brought you to one of the smaller hangars where a light starship sat and handed you a pouch that felt and sounded like credits as well as something heavy. In the distance, you were hearing laser fire.

“Go,” she said, “they’re on their way, but if you leave now you may escape!”

You wanted to argue, unprepared to deal with the suddenness of her plan, but knowing every moment you hesitated could bring you one moment closer to losing Kyron.

“Thank you,” you whispered and gave her a quick hug. She leaned down and kissed Kyron one last time.

“May the Force be with you,” she replied, clasping her hands to her chest.

You climbed into the vintage A-Wing, its interior speaking of countless missions. You didn’t even bother trying to strap in as you had Kyron swaddled against your chest in his sling; you just wanted to get off the ground and escape the area.

As the ship lifted away from the planet’s surface, you realized you had to find a destination and quickly, but needed to know where you were starting from to begin with. Your naviputer showed you had just taken off from D’Qar. You cursed yourself as you realized that fact. You should have known!

You set your initial course to take you in the opposite direction from Ilum, where Starkiller Base had been while you researched the ship's navigational logs. Your first idea was to head for the planet where you had been with Kylo, wherever he’d been training you. You were certain now it wasn’t Vodran, but what was it? There were few habitable planets with swampy environs where the Empire had established outposts and as you scanned the archives, you relied upon your navigational lessons to remind you which planets would qualify. “Mimban,” you whispered breathlessly, Kyron squalling in response. It would have made sense considering the environs and the length of time you’d travelled from _The Finalizer_.

You took a moment to set the ship to autopilot as you strapped in, adjusting Kyron so that he could nurse while you piloted, the experience entirely novel to you. You congratulated yourself on your ingenuity but a chill of fear coursed through your veins as you considered how you would manage to continue diapering and caring for him as the days went by. You were at least grateful he was still at your breast and you would be able to feed him, so long as you could find clean water for yourself.

As you approached the planet’s surface, its topography looked familiar to you, and you skimmed the atmosphere looking for signs that would lead you to your former training grounds, letting the Force nudge your intuition. Eventually, you found it, as evidenced by the faint outline of an imprint Kylo’s shuttle had left during the many months it had been parked in the jungle-like habitat.

You set the ship down, almost feeling a bit of nostalgia as you looked around at the familiar setting. You left Kyron tucked into the seat as you unloaded, thinking back to how Kylo had brought you here over a year ago. Approaching the base, you prayed you’d be able to gain access and hide your son, strapped once again to your chest while he slept, from those who would seek to harm him.

Good luck was with you for once. Following Kylo’s example, you used your telekinetic Force ability to push the doors aside, and as you entered the dark hallways, you shut the door behind you with a sense of security you knew you hadn’t yet earned. It took you a while to locate the power station and initiate the startup procedure. Kyron didn’t like the noise and he let you know in no uncertain terms.

“Shhh, hush little one. This place is special for you,” you tried consoling him, “for mamma and daddy too.”

You headed back to the level you and Kylo had used as your residence during your training period, brief as it was. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but upon entering Kylo’s former room, you thought with fondness of the intimacy the two of you had shared, and even Kyron seemed to know the significance of the place as he quieted and looked around in wonder.

The bed was made with clean sheets, Kylo having left the room in readiness, perhaps anticipating a return at some point. You were grateful for the preparation, as you were exhausted and lay down with Kyron, pillows on both sides to protect him from you rolling over him and from him rolling off the bed. As you nursed him and changed him, you made plans for your immediate survival the next couple of days, making a mental inventory of your bags. Remembering the pouch you’d received from Leia, you opened it to count the number of credits and you were shocked to find inside your lightsaber lying atop the currency. It was more precious to you than money and it gave you a sense of safety you heretofore had lacked as you clenched it between your fingers. 

As you lay your head on the pillow, watching Kyron suck his fist as he fell asleep, you felt like you now had a fighting chance to protect your child while praying beyond hope you wouldn’t have to use it.


	13. In which you are hunted

On the bridge of _The Finalizer_ , Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren looked out over the last of the escaping ships as the remainder of the Resistance took flight from their base. The rag-tag fleet was losing a great many vessels to heavy gunfire as they abandoned their headquarters, the First Order having driven them out of their nest. Ren was characteristically silent and Hux couldn’t help taunting him.

“I’m surprised you’re not on the surface, wiping out our enemies by hand,” Hux observed, knowing full well why Ren wasn’t on the planet’s surface.

“Supreme Leader felt it better for me to remain here,” Ren responded through his vocoder.

“Well, he is very wise, isn’t he?” Hux asked mockingly. “He always seems to have a good reason for his decisions, don’t you think, Ren?”

Ren turned his masked face toward Hux and stared him down for a moment before marching from the bridge. Retreating to his quarters where he gazed at the helmet of his grandfather, he replayed his relationship with Niessa in his mind, thinking back to the last time they’d been together.

He was sure that by sending that distress signal near the Resistance ship he came across en route back from Mimban that they would have found and retrieved Niessa’s escape pod. He wondered why, if she was with his mother now, that he hadn’t sensed her presence on the planet. They were Force-bonded, and even when he’d set her adrift in the escape pod, he’d felt her in his consciousness for several light years after his ship left her behind. Surely, he would have felt her while _The Finalizer_ was in the proximity of D’Qar? It made no sense, but he pushed it out of his mind as he filled it instead with his rage against the Resistance.

~~~~~~

You woke the next morning to find Kyron still sleeping, making little suckling faces as he dreamed. Sneaking over to use the refresher before he woke, you noticed for the first time that you still wore the proximity monitor with which Poe had fitted you. Leia must have deactivated it so you could escape, or the system managing it had been damaged during the attack. As you pried it from your ankle, you thought back to the sounds you’d heard all around the hangar as you’d left, and you were more than convinced it was the First Order attack Leia had been anticipating.

You were sickened to think your presence there had drawn the First Order to attack their base. Although you were opposed to the very idea of the Resistance, you hoped Leia had gotten away and was safe. She’d done right by you as much as she could and you couldn’t find it in your heart to harbor ill will toward her.

You took care of Kyron when he woke and then took him with you as you searched in and around the base for anything useful to help you two survive on Mimban, at least for a little while. You were grateful Kylo had taught you how to hunt in the surrounding environs; he’d shown you which animals were edible, which were poisonous, and which vegetation could be harvested for food. You picked some small berries and chewed them a bit, putting a miniscule amount on your finger and letting Kyron suck at it. His face lit up as he enjoyed the sweet fruit, and you relished seeing his happy little face amidst your troubles. You were determined to find a way to survive here long enough to form a long-term plan. Now you just needed luck on your side.

~~~~~~

“You appear to be empty-handed, Captain Phasma,” Hux noted of the shining officer standing before him, looking disappointed.

“Loran was not on the planet, General,” she informed him. “Our informer is of the opinion that General Organa assisted her in escaping. We think she may have taken an A-Wing fighter and we’re currently sweeping the Circarpous sector of the Expansion Region. We have reason to believe she may be headed in that direction.”

“That would make sense,” Hux’s eye lit up as he rose from behind his desk. “Intel on Ren indicates he’d taken her to Mimban for her training.”

“You mean Circarpous V, sir?” Phasma corrected him.

“After it was no longer an independent system, yes, after the Empire took over the hyperbaride mines,” he said coming around his desk to consult a star chart on the wall’s video display. Hux mapped the hyperspace route from their current position to Circarpous V. “Keep me updated, I want that child delivered to the Supreme Leader before she can evade us once more.”

As Phasma turned and left, Hux sent a signal to the Supreme Leader on _The Supremacy_.

“General Hux,” the massive hologram intoned. “I see we have the Resistance on the run. What is the status of our pursuit?”

“Their ships are dwindling and soon we will have them completely at our mercy,” Hux boasted.

“And the child?” Snoke asked.

“Captain Phasma is taking measures, she believes she is close to locating them.”

“Very good,” Snoke approved. “Don’t fail me, General Hux. This child is extremely important to our future. Let nothing stand in your way!”

“Nothing, Supreme Leader,” Hux agreed as the transmission faded out.

~~~~~~

The next day found you hiding your ship. As Kyron lay nearby in an open crate you’d lined with a blanket, you cut down branches and vines from the surrounding flora to cover the canopy of your ship in an effort to camouflage it. It took hours, but you felt you’d done an adequate enough job that any ships surveying the area would take it for a grove of bushes.

The rest of the day you scavenged the base for supplies and investigated the entire area. It was almost a futile effort, for the Empire had done a thorough job of clearing out the facility when they vacated it and Ren had left very little, there being almost no sign that the two of you had ever been there, but you did find an auxiliary exit at the far end of the facility. You made sure you could get it open in case it ever came time to evacuate the base.

There were no cities on Mimban that you knew of, only scattered mining camps. You considered whether you should visit them but thought better of it unless it was absolutely necessary, and you hoped it wouldn’t come to that. As you lay in bed that night meditating, you tried again to reach out to Kylo through the Force, to send him a message, to do anything. Instead, you felt only Kyron, and a growing restlessness in the Force.

Bundling Kyron up against the chilly evening air and cradling him in your arms, you stepped outside the doors and looked up at the skies with a pair of macrobinoculars. You could see a First Order ship in orbit above the planet and your heart sunk as you realized your liberation may be short-lived.

Should you stay in hiding and hope they couldn’t find you? Should you pull the ship out of camouflage and try to escape? Instead, you retreated into the base and locked it tightly. As you packed a bag as a preparation in case you were found, Kyron began squalling, detecting the stress you were experiencing. You laid down and nursed him, and thankfully he was quieted in response.

“You are my little angel, my little gift from daddy,” you cooed at him as his mouth sucked hungrily at you with his eyes closed, his little hand patting your breast to reassure himself you were still there. Eventually, he fell asleep, your precious milk dribbling from the side of his mouth, and you wiped it away. You heard his gentle breathing late into the night as you lay awake fearing for your future and the future of your child.

~~~~~~

“Move out!” Captain Phasma ordered her troops once the transport landed at the former Imperial Base Station on Mimban in the early morning hours. “If they’re here, we’ll find them,” Phasma told her lieutenant, “and I’d bet my armor they are.”

The troops set up a base camp and organized into search parties with each party’s leader assigned a search area by Phasma.

“This is what the mother looks like,” Phasma announced to the assembled troops, showing an enlarged holovid of your I.D. profile in three dimensions. “Bring the baby back alive. The mother is disposable,” she instructed them.

“Who’s the father?” one soldier naïvely asked.

“Not you!” joked another, their colleagues erupting into guffaws.

Phasma waited for the chatter to quiet down, and then said, “It’s not for you to know, trooper. All you need to do is what you’ve been ordered – find that child and bring him back alive.”

~~~~~~

A noise woke you suddenly, but it wasn’t Kyron. Your infant was sleeping soundly between the pillows you’d laid out as a barricade, his small fists balled up near his face. You listened at the door and thought you heard mechanical noises down the hall.

You dressed quickly and scooped up Kyron across your chest in his sling, stuffing your nipple in his mouth to keep him quiet and grabbed your bag holding his diapers, the credits and some other necessities. Your lightsaber you clipped on your waist, ready to do battle with anyone who might want to harm you or the baby.

You opened the door and peeked out to hear the distinctive sound of trooper armor and your blood ran cold. Drawing on your training, you snuck down the hall toward the rear exit, hoping they hadn’t located it from the outside yet. You raced as quietly as you could, grateful for Kyron being preoccupied with his breakfast. As you reached the back door and sent your Force senses through the blast doors, you detected nothing, so you pulled them aside and found they led into the deep jungle. You wondered if you could get to your ship before they found you, but you weren’t prepared to take that chance. Instead, you plunged headlong into the swampy environs, fleeing for your lives.


	14. In which you run for your lives

“Captain!” a trooper called out. “Definitely a baby here,” he told Phasma as she entered the abandoned quarters in which they now stood. He held up a damp fabric diaper that had been drying on a makeshift clothesline.

“They’ve been here recently,” Phasma observed. “Fan out,” she commanded, “secure all the exits.”

Her troopers scoured every inch of the facility, finally discovering the back doors. As Captain Phasma and her troopers opened the doors and found your footprints in the muddy Mimban earth, she uttered in satisfaction. “We have them.”

~~~~~~

The deeper you delved into the Mimban jungle, the harder it was. You were trying desperately to simultaneously maintain your balance in the slippery muck, move quickly in order to evade the First Order and keep Kyron safe from the vegetation that was impeding your progress lest a stray branch scratch his face.

You realized you would have to make better time and cover your tracks if you were going to lose them, but the only way you saw to do that was to paddle through the swamp but having Kyron with you made you afraid to attempt that. You pictured yourself chest deep in cold muck, and you couldn’t bring yourself to subject Kyron to that. You were coming to realize something had to give – you needed to disappear or be prepared to turn yourself in.

You could hear them closing in on you, their armor clacking in the distance, shouting to each other over their comms. Now you knew how the animals that you had hunted in these woods must have felt. And that’s when it hit you – the woods, or more precisely, the trees.

Remembering the lessons Kylo had taught you to leap from tree to tree using levitation, you began scrambling up the nearest trunk, careful not to crush Kyron on your way up. This was going to be interesting considering the last time you had done this you were in better shape and not carrying an infant on your chest, especially with him now crying. Your lessons stayed with you, though, and your lead on them increased exponentially as you doubled-back toward the base in an effort to throw them off your trail.

There was one harrowing moment where you nearly fell, but you leashed the fear you were experiencing through the dark side to push yourself harder. As you approached the area surrounding the base, you crawled up into the trees’ canopies and found a place to tuck yourselves away while you nursed Kyron to keep him quiet.

You were tired and thirsty from your physical exertion, but you had only one bottle of water in your pack. As long as you had milk for Kyron, you were going to conserve it. While you waited them out, you rested in the crook of two branches, thankful for their strength to hold you and foliage to conceal you. If you could just keep Kyron quiet, you might be able to evade them long enough for them to give up and return to their ship.

The hours ticked by, and you began to worry. Kyron needed a diaper change, and you were afraid to try to put a new one on him in this position for fear you’d drop him, but at some point, you would have to make a move. You sighed in gratitude when you saw a line of troops marching below you. Their lax carriage gave you to believe they were returning. They were ambling without intent, helmets off, blasters holstered. You held your breath, waiting for them to disappear and then stayed put for a while more, comforting Kyron with Force energy when he began fussing.

You continued listening, and when you were certain they had given you a wide enough berth, you shimmied down the tree, changing Kyron’s diaper the first chance you got. “You’re such a good boy, honey,” you commended him, giving him a big smile which he returned as you pulled him back snug across you. You began to have hope you would escape this situation.

Your optimism was unfounded though as your Force-sense made the hair on your arms stand up. Rising to your feet, you turned to find Captain Phasma behind you.

“Corporal Loran,” she began. “Give me the child and I won’t kill you,” she threatened you.

“It will never happen,” you replied, telekinetically pulling your lightsaber from your hip and slipping it into your grip. You were prepared to fight to the death to save your baby. Up until now, every battle in which you’d found yourself, even including the fight with Ren’s Knights, was practice. This was for real, and the stakes were the highest that could ever be paid.

The Captain was wielding a large rifle, and you were terrified any shot from the weapon could kill Kyron, so tiny was he, but you assumed a fighting stance nonetheless.

“Don’t be stupid,” she taunted you, “You’re no fighter, Loran, it’s the reason Ren wouldn’t bring you back – you were his failure.” Her words cut through you, because you knew they were true.

“That may be, but it’s not going to stop me from protecting my baby,” you retorted.

“You can’t go far. We have your ship, there’s nowhere to run. If you struggle, you’ll put the baby’s life in jeopardy. If you come willingly, Supreme Leader may spare your life.”

You considered her offer for a moment, but remembered what Ren had told you about the Supreme Leader being unable to have rogue Force-users around.

“You’re lying,” you said to her, circling her, “I know what he’ll do to me.”

“Put the babe down, Loran. I won’t ask you again.”

“Good, because I’m tired of listening!” With that, you tried to pull the blaster from her grip with the Force, but she was too quick. Instead, she fired a bolt toward you that you deflected away. Frustrated, she fired again, more rapidly now, and you blocked each shot until you were able to press the attack and reach her, the blade of your lightsaber finally slicing the barrel of the rifle off. She tried to use it as a club, but you pressed forward, determined to save your child from her at all costs.

She began to retreat and you pressed your advantage with deft deflections until you were within striking distance, lopping her firing-hand off at the wrist. It was the first time you’d wounded someone with such gore, and it sickened you as you heard her gasp from behind her helm. But you also heard Kylo in your ear: _no mercy; no quarter_ , the lesson being beaten into you by your Master.

She looked from her hand to your face, and you took advantage of her error in hesitation to decapitate her without a second’s thought, the metallic helmet reflecting the forest canopy as it rolled away from you and you covered Kyron’s eyes despite the likelihood he would understand what just happened. Her body collapsed a split second later, and you fell to your knees, retching at the carnage you had wrought.

You realized now, these woods would soon be crawling with troopers. As you looked down at Kyron staring up at you, his little lip trembling as he prepared to break into a wail, you realized you’d do it all over again to save your baby. You’d slice through a hundred Phasmas if it meant keeping him secure.

What you couldn’t protect him from right now was the rain, which began falling in torrents through the leafy canopy of the surrounding jungle. You ran for cover, searching in vain for a grove of trees or an outcropping, anything wide and solid under which you could seek shelter with Kyron. You did your best to shield him from the deluge, but despite the fact that you had tucked him under your chin, your head and hands were insufficient to completely cover him and the two of you were soon drenched. To add to your fears, twilight was falling. The idea of your son catching a chill in the cold night air sent panic through you.

In frustration, you knelt under a nearby bush, not nearly enough to shelter you, but you put your knapsack on the ground under you as you hunched over on your hands and knees, Kyron cushioned against the knapsack. Your back was sheltering him now, and you knelt over him as he hung in his cloth sling, crying. His face was scrunched up in anger and frustration as he wailed in protest against his circumstances.

“I know, honey, I know,” you tried comforting him, his howling voice cutting you to the heart as you watched his misery. You had to do something to help him, to get him out of the rain and into shelter. You used the only thing you had at your disposal – your Force sensitivity. Digging your hands into the muddy earth, you sought to feel the surrounding area, looking for something, anything to aid you and your poor offspring. You felt tree roots and puddles, rocks and aquifers, and you were beginning to give up when you sensed a structure – it had to be. The stones were too regular, too orderly to be a natural occurrence.

You took your jacket off and wrapped it around Kyron as you rose and headed back out into the storm toward the area you suspected of having a building. It took you away from the path you’d previously been following back towards the base and you traveled what felt like several klicks before arriving at the area you’d been sensing.

The woods opened to a battle-scarred terrain, a remnant of the Mimban revolutionary action that took place here before you were even born. There were channels of trenches running in all directions, but their open nature meant they provided no shelter, and most of them were half-filled with mud as it was. Peering through the murky mist, you looked around for anywhere or anything that would provide cover. At the very end of one of the trenches, near a large tree, lay the remains of an AT-ST tilted on its side.

One of the windows was blown out, but the rest of it looked fairly intact from what you could observe by sticking your head inside and carefully ensuring nothing was lying in wait to attack you. Seeing it was clear, you crawled inside with Kyron and removed the sopping wet clothing from the both of you, then cradled his tiny naked body against your skin to warm him up as you put him to your breast.

But nothing happened – your milk wouldn’t let down, and he was soon howling and thrashing against you, hungry and anxious. You tried calming yourself, but it was difficult with him crying, your body stressed, and your dehydration level dangerously high.

You grabbed the water bottle and drank deeply, putting small capfuls to Kyron’s lips a bit at a time to at least try to keep him hydrated. He spat out more than he swallowed, but every little bit that went inside him was helpful, and you reached the bottle out of the window to refill it with rain water and continued to drink deeply while you could. You massaged your breasts, meditated to calm yourself and rest your body, and sent waves of Force energy over your son in an attempt to placate him. Nothing worked, and you realized with horror - you could no longer feed your baby.

You knew you could keep him alive with water, but only for a short time. You had to do something. You looked around the interior of the vehicle for anything of value or substance. There was a glove, the built-in comm unit having run out of battery long ago. But that made you wonder - the dashboard comm unit still seemed to be intact.

Flipping power switches and engaging the panel’s display, you prayed fervently it would work. Your heart raced with hope as you saw the buttons begin glowing and the dials come to life. “Please, please, please,” you begged the machine, then stopped, realizing that you didn’t know who to call even if it did work. There was no way to contact Kylo directly, and the Resistance were on the run. Dare you turn yourself in with Kyron, hoping Phasma was right – that they just wanted the baby? It would mean you may die, that your child might live.

As you looked down at his helpless, tear-streaked face, you realized you had a decision to make, and the window you had left in which to make it was narrowing. Night had fallen, and you could hear the noises of nocturnal creatures scurrying about in the underbrush. You appeared to have little choice left in front of you.


	15. In which you suffer loss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *******This chapter is extremely dark.*******  
> If you have a sensitive constitution, please stop here.

“General Hux, we’ve had a setback, sir,” a trooper’s voice emanated from the communicator.

“What kind of setback, Lieutenant?” Hux asked in agitation.

“Captain Phasma,” he began, “she’s…. Loran… the fugitive,” he stammered.

“Spit it out!” Hux yelled at the speaker.

“She killed Captain Phasma. With a lightsaber, we think.”

“WHAT?!” Hux raged.

“Her head… it was cut clean off! And her hand!”

Hux collapsed into his chair.

“General Hux, what are your orders, Sir?” the trooper asked.

Hux hesitated for a moment. “Stand ready,” he advised. “I’ll be in touch.”

~~~~~~

Lying in the belly of the AT-ST, you listened to the rainfall cascade down its hull. Kyron’s diapers had remained dry for far too long, evidence of the dehydration that had begun to set in. Your milk would no longer come down, and you both were beginning to succumb to the rigors of the environment. Kyron’s cries had faded into ragged sobs, his voice raspy from his chronic wails and the lack of liquid in his tiny body.

Unable to hydrate him any other way, you tried drinking water from the bottle and then covering his mouth with yours as you dribbled it between his lips while you stroked his cheek to stimulate his suckling reflex.

“Please drink,” you begged him, “please, honey.” But Kyron simply gurgled and spit the water out, choking on some of it and crying all over again.

You gave in to your fears and began sobbing, despairing of your chances of returning Kyron to safety. You realized if you didn’t act quickly, he would die and you couldn’t bear to let your infant child perish in your arms. Despite the fact that you may be killed by the First Order, you had to get help for your baby son. With regret, you flipped the power switches on the comm unit and sent a distress signal, hoping help would arrive in time to save him.

~~~~~~

Kylo Ren knelt in deference to his Master, his head bowed.

“You have lied to me, my apprentice,” Snoke uttered accusingly.

Kylo knew he’d been found out, that his attempts to protect his own apprentice had gone horribly awry.

“Yes, Master,” he replied, not in the least bit sorry.

“Your attempts to hide Loran have resulted in a great loss for the First Order. In Captain Phasma’s efforts to bring the young woman back,” Snoke said, rising from his throne to approach Ren, “she lost her life. Very disturbing.”

Kylo looked up at Snoke, confused.

“Your student managed to decapitate Phasma and she is currently on the run.” Snoke stood with his hands behind his back, staring down at Kylo, disgruntled. “It appears your fear of her failing the trials was unfounded. Of course, she was likely motivated by a single purpose. Do you have any idea what that may be?”

Kylo shook his head, unable to think of anything but his fear for your safety.

“Search within you, boy,” he hissed in Kylo’s ear.

The young man turned his thoughts inward, drawing on the Force to reach out to you, seeking your Force signature. He startled as he felt you in the ether – there was your presence, the other side of his bond, your warmth and passion just as he remembered but there was something else, something alongside it, something he couldn’t quite place. And you were frightened. Your presence in the Force was desperate, crying out for rescue, for help, and not just for yourself.

“What would you have of me, Master?” he asked, hiding what he was sensing from Snoke, downplaying his discovery.

“You will bring her back this time, boy,” Snoke threatened, “or don’t come back at all.”

“It will be done, Master,” Kylo replied, sweeping from Snoke’s chambers, his cloak billowing behind him.

~~~~~~

*drip*

*drip*

*drip* *drip*

*drip*

Your eyes parted to see raindrops hesitantly falling from the edge of a broken window. You were parched and dizzy, and you couldn’t remember where you were. You must be in a vehicle, but why was the window open?

“Niessa!!” a voice boomed from outside the vehicle and you looked over to see a black silhouette fill the opening where the window used to be. The sound of a lightsaber screaming through metal assaulted your ears, and you could hear Kylo giving orders to several men outside.

Looking down in your lap to check on Kyron, your heart stopped – he was cold. His body was limp, his face blue.

Kyron was dead.

“No, NO, NOOOOO!!!”

Kylo tore at the wreckage, desperate to reach you as your screams rent the peacefulness of the surrounding forest. Looking down at you as he got through, he struggled to make out what was happening; why were you hysterical and what did you have in your arms? In shock and sorrow, he realized, it was a baby. And his vision in Snoke’s chambers came back to him with stunning clarity now – it was your baby; it was _his_ baby. Sadly, the infant’s skin was dusky and it was clearly bereft of life.

You screamed until you lost your breath and could discern nothing around you. You didn’t notice as Kylo took his cloak off, wrapped it around you and picked you up, Kyron still in your arms. You couldn’t hear Vicrul’s command to the troopers and other Knights of Ren assembled outside – “Buckets off, men!” – the soldiers doffing their helmets and parting in silence as Ren carried you, sobbing and wailing, to the transport ship. You didn’t observe the tears in every single troopers’ eyes as they saw Kylo carry the mother of his child and his dead baby past them, your hysterical cries the only sound for miles around.

Kylo laid you in one of the passenger cabins and stroked your head, commanding you, “ _Sleep_.” You fell into a deep rest as he took the baby tenderly from your arms and wrapped Kyron in his cloak, removing his helmet to take a long look at the sweet babe who so resembled him before covering the child’s face and carrying him to the cockpit where he lay in his father’s embrace the entire journey back to _The Finalizer_.

~~~~~~

Kylo woke you upon landing, putting Kyron in your arms as he knew you’d want and he held you by the shoulders as you faced the hangar full of personnel. Kylo was prepared to carry you should you falter as you disembarked. But you wouldn’t have it – your son would have the honor he deserved as Kylo’s firstborn, you would see to that. As you stood at the top of the ramp, disheveled and exhausted, you drew your strength from the dark side, now abounding with anger, grief and vengeance. You picked your head up and pulled Kyron close to you as you stepped from the shuttle.

Word had spread ahead of your return. At a signal, the assembled troopers, thousands of them, doffed their helmets in respect for the dead. You passed echelons of troops unable to meet your gaze, some weeping openly as they caught sight of you carrying the tiny bundle that was the body of your infant son, the son of Kylo Ren.

Once you had traversed the inexorably long hangar, Kylo took you back up the same elevator he’d brought you down so many months ago. You fell against the back wall and he reached over to embrace you, keeping you from crumpling to the floor. The two of you had spoken not at all yet, unable to find the words in your shock and sorrow.

Kylo took you to the medical bay for treatment, and you hesitated to let go of the baby, breaking into a fresh cascade of tears. “Niessa, you need rest, let the medics care for you, I’ll make sure they keep the baby right here,” Kylo said as he directed one of the staff to bring a bassinette to your bedside. You were thankful for him, and once he’d laid the baby where you could keep an eye on him, the meddroids gave you a sedative, ending your conscious suffering.

~~~~~~

Waking from a drug-induced slumber, you found Kylo at your side looking sleep-deprived, the baby exactly where you’d left him. Kylo reached out and took your hand. After many sorrowful moments, he spoke.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asked.

You shared the long story of Kyron’s conception and birth, your time with the Resistance and the relationship you developed with his mother, your sudden flight to Mimban, and your confrontation with Phasma before escaping to the location where he’d found you.

“I think Poe Dameron gave me away on D’Qar,” you surmised.

“We’ll get to the bottom of it, just like I’m going to get to the bottom of everything here with Snoke and Hux,” he said angrily. “I promise you, and I keep my promises. I told you I’d see you again someday. I’m just sorry it wasn’t sooner,” he said, looking over at Kyron’s tiny figure. “I was grateful for your distress signal. I don’t know if I would have found you otherwise.”

“I should have sent it earlier, I’m so sorry,” you apologized, sobbing in regret. “I could have saved him if I’d sent it hours prior! I should have laid down my life for him!”

“There was nothing you could have done, don’t do that to yourself. I’m incredibly proud of you for how hard you fought,” he said, stroking your face to wipe away your tears. “I’d rather he died in your arms than in someone else’s hands.” You knew exactly whose hands he meant.

“What did you name him?” he asked softly.

“Kyron,” you replied in a whisper, afraid to speak his name aloud for fear you’d begin crying all over again. “I wanted him to have a patronym.”

Kylo expressed half a smile. “Thank you,” he said quietly. Leaning close, Kylo whispered to you. “You went through heroic efforts to save him. You were an exemplary mother, and when you reach into the Force, you’ll feel him – he’ll always be there.” He leaned over and kissed your forehead, ignoring the fresh tears falling down your face. “ _Sleep_.”

~~~~~~

The next day, Kylo returned to your bedside and brought you a set of clothing; resplendent black robes as well as all the necessary accoutrements. “We say goodbye to Kyron today,” he said, his voice full of stoicism. He’d convinced you to turn over the baby’s body for a post-mortem examination and to prepare it for cremation, and the medical team was ready to turn your son back over to you to hold one last time.

You fought against letting go of him at the funeral, but Kylo was strong while you were full of despair. He let you hold Kyron as long as you wanted, and when you were ready, you handed him over to his father who was caring for his son in death as he was never able to in life. As you watched them load your baby’s tiny body into the fire, you wanted to clamber in with him, and Kylo had to hold you back to keep you from reaching in after him to pull him back out. Your life was worthless without your child who had come to mean so much to you, and you collapsed in Kylo’s embrace, his strong arms surrounding you, helping you contain your sorrow so that it didn’t consume you.

After the funeral, Kylo took you back to his quarters. He brought a quartermaster in to provide you clothing, shoes, and anything else you needed. As he left you to handle your affairs, he headed for the door but you stopped him.

“Where are you going?” you asked gently.

“Now begins the reckoning,” Kylo said through gritted teeth.

“Not without me,” you replied, retrieving your recovered lightsaber from the stand on his dresser in which his had rested so many months ago.


	16. In which you show no mercy

Kylo had begun the reckoning, and first to be dealt with was Snoke.

You wore an outfit similar to Kylo’s but cut in a more feminine style and it gave the two of you an appearance of unity of purpose as you entered the hangar to board Ren’s shuttle headed for the _Supremacy_. Before reaching the landing ramp, Ren turned to you with concern. “You need to know, I’m bringing the Knights with us. Will you be alright?”

“Will they bring Kyron justice?” you asked in a hushed tone.

“Yes,” he responded with certainty.

“Then I will welcome their presence with open arms,” you replied, the anger flaring in your eyes. Kylo reached down and took your hand as the two of you mounted the ramp.

Upon arrival, the team stalked through the hallways of the Supreme Leader’s flagship, arriving at the throne room en masse. As you stood together preparing to enter, Cardo whispered to Kylo, apprehension tinging his voice. “Is she strong enough for this?”

Kylo looked him dead in the eyes. “She’s always been strong enough. She just never believed in herself until now.”

The doors were opened by Snoke’s Praetorian Guard and the battle ensued. Kylo Ren was an avenging angel, wreaking death and delivering executions like a man possessed, for he was. He was consumed with a desire to mete out justice to those who so richly deserved it for the death of his son.

Weapons clashed and clattered as you and the Knights took out one after another of the elite troopers while Kylo moved forward to do battle with the Supreme Leader himself. From the corner of your eye you saw lightning flashing, and when the guards had all been dispatched, the team rallied around Kylo, lending their strength to him and finally bringing Snoke to his knees.

“You’re useless now,” the wizened ruler sneered at Kylo as he sought cover against the throne. “You’re sentimental, done in by your attachments to a woman and a child. How pathetic!”

“That woman is my apprentice, and that child was my heir,” Kylo raged. "What’s pathetic is your attempts to keep me isolated and enslaved to serve your own selfish ends, but no longer. I will have justice for all of us!” he proclaimed and then delivered the death stroke to the Master who had already taken so much from him, severing the decrepit leader in half, his torso and his legs slipping to the floor in opposite directions.

Next was Hux.

Kylo summoned the General to Snoke’s throne room where the Knights now took up positions the Praetorian Guard had previously fulfilled, and you stood at Kylo’s side where he sat on the throne of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, Snoke’s body lying at the foot of the dais as a warning to Hux.

Pointing toward you, Kylo asked the obsequious officer who knelt in his presence, “You know who this is, do you not General Hux?” You looked down at him with disgust and loathing.

“Why, it’s Corporal Loran, how good to see you,” he groveled.

“That wasn’t your point of view a few short days ago, you sniveling sycophant!” Kylo raged at him. “You know what transpired on Circarpous V, do you not?”

“I, d-do, Commander,” Hux stammered, no longer able to hide his fear, “m-my condolences.”

“It’s Supreme Leader now, Hux. And you never told me, never gave me a chance to save him! You could have stopped it at any time, but you and Phasma hunted my child to his death!” Kylo’s voice boomed. “His blood is on your head.”

“That w-wasn’t m-my intention, S-supreme Leader! S-Snoke said it was c-confidential!”

“Well, you see where he is now, don’t you?” Kylo said as he kicked part of Snoke’s body off the dais with the toe of his boot. “Niessa had to watch our baby die in her arms, we lost our firstborn!!” Kylo seethed between gritted teeth as Hux shrank from him and you choked back tears at the reminder of your loss. “Beg her forgiveness!” Kylo demanded of Hux.

“Please,” he beseeched you, kneeling at your feet. “I’m so sorry, please forgive me!”

You remained mute for several moments, unable to speak until you gathered your anger and vengefulness stoked by the dark side. As you loomed over him, you pronounced his punishment. “The only thing I can give you is the mercy of a quick death, the grace of which you denied my child.” With that, you drew your saber and stepped forward, fixed on the horror in Hux’s eyes, imagining your own eyes looking the same when you had discovered Kyron’s cold corpse in your lap, and you separated Hux’s head from his body with a rage borne of a mother bereaved.

With all First Order debts settled, Kylo escorted you to his new quarters and the two of you slept the sleep of the just.

~~~~~~

“I want that man found, I’m going to destroy him!” Kylo demanded of the officers surrounding him, his fist slamming into the conference room table on which a holovid of Poe Dameron’s face was rotating.

“Very good, Sir,” said the highest-ranking officer.

“Dismissed!” Kylo announced with authority.

He returned to the quarters he had set up for the two of you on the _Supremacy_ , stealing quietly into the room, loathe to disturb your rest. He observed your pillow was wet with tears where you had cried yourself to sleep once more. He knew the mourning period would be long, maybe a lifetime, and he had vowed to do nothing to disrupt it. You had earned your sorrow and he wasn’t going to take it from you.

The next day when you were up and about, he brought you to sit with him in the lounge in front of the observation window in the living room of your quarters. “How are you today?” he asked quietly.

You nodded your head, trying to find the words. “I’m just trying to stay together,” you replied, twisting a handkerchief in your shaking hands.

“You know, I'm to be formally installed as Supreme Leader in a few days,” he said.

“Yes, congratulations,” you answered, giving him a smile you didn’t feel in your heart. “I guess it’s time I went back to my position on the bridge and my own quarters.”

“No, Niessa, not anymore. That’s not what I want for you, you’ve done too much and come too far to be a simple navigator,” he said kneeling in front of you. He drew a large flat case out of his jacket and, opening it, withdrew a simple but elegant choker which he reached up and fastened about your neck. “I want you as my empress.”

Fingering the fine collar of tiny celestial gems, you were shocked by his pronouncement, unable to answer him. “But I've come from a common family, my family are not royalty, not like yours. You’re a Prince of Alderaan, grandson of Lord Vader.”

Kylo shook his head to dismiss the honorifics he felt he hadn’t earned. “Niessa, you've proven your right to rule by my side. You’ve been loyal and devoted to me, you’ve fought just as hard as I have for this,” he replied.

You hesitated. “What if it’s not what I want for me?”

“Please,” he asked gently as he rose to his great height. Looking down where you sat holding his hand, he pleaded, “I know I didn’t give you a choice when we first met and a life you didn’t agree to was thrust upon you. But I need you. I want you to bear more children with me, help me rule the galaxy, together.” The thought of having another baby gave you a momentary glimmer of hope, though you weren’t ready to replace Kyron so easily, and Kylo could sense that.

“Kyron will always be our firstborn, our special child,” he said soothingly, “but I’m trying to build an empire, I need an heir and there’s no one else I can trust, no one I’d rather have next to me than you.”

“Would I still be your apprentice?” you questioned him.

“Until you pass the trials, yes, and only if you choose to continue the training,” he replied. “But I’d like to see that, I know you have great talent if you would allow me to teach you.”

“Kylo,” you pleaded with him, “this is a lot to take in, I have much to think about.”

“Of course,” he said, bending down to kiss your forehead. “We have three days. The preparations must begin, and I would need time to make the necessary arrangements for you.”

You laid your hand on his arm before he could leave. “Dameron – I want all debts settled before the coronation.”

He took your hand in his, lifted your fingertips to his lips and kissed them gently. “As we speak, My Empress,” he smiled at you as he stalked from the quarters, intent on handling business.

~~~~~~

“General Organa, can I see you?” Kaydel Ko Connix asked, poking her head into Leia’s office aboard the _Raddus._

“Come in, please tell me you have news,” she replied tiredly, gesturing the young officer to sit in front of her.

“We do,” Connix began hesitantly. “So, you’ll remember, we thought the recon ship we sent to Starkiller Base was what led the First Order to track us down on D’Qar?”

“And?” Leia prompted her. The young woman looked reluctant to tell the General what she’d learned.

“It wasn’t; that ship was never detected. Instead, what we tracked down was a transmission that was made to the Ileenium System,” she said regretfully. “General, it was Poe Dameron. And now we can’t find him anywhere.”

~~~~~~

You and Kylo were dressed in your evening clothes and having dinner the day after he’d proposed to you, and the room was quiet as you sat across from each other at the large dining table, eating a meal prepared by a private chef. You weren’t ready for large gatherings or the hectic pace of the bevy of servants Kylo was sure to garner after the coronation since you were still trying to cope with Kyron’s loss, so he’d brought someone in to cook for just the two of you.

You both ate quietly, occasionally stealing furtive glances at each other. In the stillness, you contemplated Kylo’s offer of marriage, and Kylo was wondering if you’d accept, until an urgent message came across his datapad, breaking the relative silence of the suite and he looked down with his brows knitted with scrutiny.

“Is it Dameron?” you asked with urgency.

Kylo nodded slightly. “It appears he’s walking into the trap we set for him,” he responded solemnly, setting the datapad down and marching into the bedroom to change.

“What trap?” you asked with hopeful anticipation as you followed him.

“It seems he wanted to teach General Organa a lesson. Dameron thinks she’s going easy on the First Order because of me, so he’s made off with Resistance intel to take to the New Republic to force her hand,” he explained. “What he doesn’t know is that the same informant he used to turn you in to Snoke is being used against _him_ ,” he explained as he changed into his uniform. “The informant fed Dameron bad intel, and he’s currently on his way to meet what he believes to be a New Republic operative. Instead, he’s ours.”

“That’s brilliant,” you whispered. “I want to come with you,” you pleaded as you began pulling your closet open to get changed as well.

“No, Niessa, not this time,” he said, coming around to take both of your hands in his. “Things could get messy very quickly and you’re still not yourself, but I will bring him here and we will punish him together, I promise.”

“But, Kylo, I want to see his face when you take him prisoner!” you protested.

“Even I probably won’t be there for that part,” he reassured you, cupping your chin in his hand and tilting your face up to look you deeply in the eyes. “But he will have his retribution by the time of coronation, just as I vowed to you,” and he closed his eyes as he leaned down to place his warm lips on yours, for the first time since he’d fatefully put you aboard the escape pod, and kissed you as deeply as his commitments to you.

A knock at the suite signaled it was time for him to leave and Kylo grabbed his lightsaber from the stand on the dresser once again as he turned back to look at you. You followed him back to the living room and watched as the door opened to reveal the Knights of Ren, ready to take flight in pursuit of the traitor who had betrayed you and your child.


	17. In which you are put in a difficult position

General Organa stood over Connix's shoulder in the _Raddus'_ control room, listening to a distress signal from Poe Dameron. The illumination of the translucent monitor cast an eerie glow against her tense visage as she listened to Dameron's desperate plea for help.

“Permission to send a response, General?” Connix requested, her finger ready to pounce on the communication switch.

“Stand down, Connix.” Leia advised.

“But General-” the young woman protested.

“No,” Leia responded with finality. “We've sacrificed enough for Dameron. Shut down the transmission.” She turned to leave and then looked back at Connix, feeling she owed her an explanation. “My grandson Kyron died while Niessa was on the run,” she said to her. The young woman lightly gasped at the revelation. “And Poe is partially to blame. We can't protect him from what's about to happen to him. Not without it costing us, and I'm no longer willing to save him from himself.” She patted Connix's shoulder as she walked slowly from the control room, the years of loss and sadness wearing on her face and in her gait as she headed back to her quarters for some much-needed rest.

~~~~~~

You paced the floor of your quarters, the flowing day dress swirling around your ankles as you strode back and forth, your smooth leather slippers making no noise on the glossy tile floors. You kept watch at the observation window, praying to soon see Ren’s ship fly past, successfully returning from their quest to capture Dameron.

You looked down at the outfit you wore, one of the many elegant pieces of attire Kylo had ordered made for you. Silky fabrics and fine detailing were the hallmarks of the new wardrobe he’d provided you, but you wished he hadn’t been so generous. You were afraid you were going to become accustomed to a lifestyle you weren’t at all sure you wanted to embrace. 

You had scoured the archives to read about the expectations, responsibilities and protocols for the roles of people in the upper echelons of the First Order government. An empress could be required to perform a vast number of duties, and you didn’t know if you were up to the task. While you weren’t raised as a low-class citizen, you would have a high learning curve if you were to take on the role of the wife of the Supreme Leader. 

He had also mentioned children. He stressed wanting an heir, and probably would want a “spare” as well. Could you give him two children? Maybe more? Should you? Sometimes you wanted to preserve Kyron’s memory by never having any other children, lest anyone else ever replace him in your heart.

However, there was something Kylo hadn’t said to you when trying to persuade you to marry him – he hadn’t mentioned love. Then again, neither had you. You weren’t so far removed from the realities of life that you weren’t aware that marriages involving high-powered positions were often loveless in nature, but Kylo at least appeared to care for your well-being and he was certainly protective. Maybe you could come to love each other.

Your reverie was disrupted by a signal at the door. Answering it, you found Vicrul there, panting through his mask as if he’d run the entire way from the docking bay.

“It’s Kylo,” he said breathlessly. “He’s asking for you, he’s hurt badly.”

You gasped as your hand flew to your mouth. The two of you raced to the medbay, your mind awhirl with fears as to Kylo’s condition.

“What happened?” you asked while in a lift.

“We met with the informant, and then he took Ren to Dameron, but when the traitor realized he was found out, he exploded a thermal detonator rather than being taken alive.”

Arriving in the medbay, you were guided to a window where Kylo was lying on a gurney, doctors and meddroids peeling his clothes from him while he screamed in pain. You cringed as you heard his cries of agony and saw the horrific wounds as the fabric was pulled away and his burned skin was exposed. Feeling helpless to aid him, you reached out through the Force to try to comfort him, to let him know you were there. When you connected, what you felt was horrific: his body was on fire and he was being tormented, but there was nothing that was being done for his misery.

“Can’t they sedate him?!” you pleaded with Vicrul. “Make them give him something! He’s in pain!!” You were in tears, wringing your hands in desperation.

A fresh wave of wailing erupted from Kylo as they turned him over.

You sought out the door to the triage room, banging fiercely at it to gain entry. Vicrul pulled you away just as you were about to use the Force to pry it open.

“Shhh, young lady,” he comforted you, “they’ll fix him up proper, don’t you worry.” He guided you back to the window, his strong hands guiding your shoulders. “You need to pull yourself together, he needs you right now. He needs to know you’re here.”

You reached back out to Kylo, trying to comfort him as you had comforted Kyron, and a sudden thought met you with horror; you couldn’t lose them both. Pushing the idea from your mind, you refocused, determined to do all you could within your power. You felt Kylo latch onto you, that familiar feeling rushing back. He was in anguish, and he was begging you to help him; not with words, but you could feel the pleading in his Force energy, the pull to save him from his ordeal.

You sent him the same waves of energy you’d sent Kyron, soft and soothing, and you felt a small amount of relief as he sensed you trying to comfort him. When they were finally done stripping him bare, they gently lifted him into a bacta tank. His face, which seemed thankfully spared, was covered with a breathing apparatus, and his renewed cries against the fresh onslaught of pain caused by the tepid liquid were muffled behind the mask. As you watched him lying afloat in the healing fluid, his cries began to abate to ragged whimpers and then fade away as unconsciousness overcame him as a narcotic was administered.

You waited at the window for word of his condition, and the head medic finally emerged to confer with you. He was silver haired and mature, a holdover from the Imperial days.

“Miss, or uh, my lady, is it?” he struggled to define you as he shook your hand.

“Just Niessa, please, how is he? Will he live?” you asked frantically, holding onto him as if you could hold onto Kylo’s life.

“Well, it’s going to be a long healing process, but let’s be optimistic, shall we?” he smiled and patted your hand in reassurance. “Nasty accident, that, never liked thermal detonators. Messy business.”

“When can I see him?” you asked.

“Oh, he won’t be able to see or hear you for quite a while, several days at least,” he informed you regretfully.

“Can I at least come in and be close?” you pleaded.

He looked at you with sympathy and relented. “Alright, but just know that he won’t be responsive.”

“I understand, thank you,” you replied.

He nodded to Vicrul behind you as he patted your hand again before turning his attention to the Knight behind you. “Can I have a word?”

Meanwhile, you rushed into the doorway the doctor had emerged from and approached the tank where Kylo lay, submerged in the sticky bacta fluid. Bit of flesh were hanging from his limbs, which seemed to have borne the brunt of the explosion. His fingers were charred almost beyond recognition and his arms and legs were seared and blistered, as well as most of his torso. Thankfully, his lower legs seemed to have been protected by his boots but you couldn’t tell how bad his back was. The explosion seemed to have been in front of him, so you were hopeful that side had been spared.

The staff were finishing cleaning up the area, and one of the young medics brought you something.

“Um, my lady?” the girl addressed you.

“No, just…” you realized you were being treated as Kylo’s consort now, and you didn’t think it was feasible to continue correcting everyone, so you relented. “Yes?” you asked.

She extended Kylo’s lightsaber to you. In shock and gratitude, you took it from her, feeling the echo of Kylo’s kyber crystal thrumming within. She noted your reaction, not realizing how you were recalling the day you’d first touched his saber, first met him, first started your journey as his apprentice.

“It’s alright, my lady,” she consoled you. “We’ll do everything we can for him.”

“Please,” you begged, “he has so much more to do with his life.”

She nodded and smiled, patting your shoulder. “If you need anything, you just let us know, we’ll be right here.”

You thanked her silently with a smile, turning back to Kylo and holding his saber in your hands.

Through the Force, you reached out to him, finding him exuding pain, regret and anger. You soothed him again, letting your presence in the Force give him solace as you tried to encourage him that his suffering wouldn’t be forever.

~~~~~~

“His odds are not good,” the Doctor informed Vicrul as the two men watched you at Kylo’s side.

“What do you mean? He’s young, he’s strong!” the Knight objected.

“He also sustained a great deal of damage, and those injuries had a huge head start on us,” the doctor explained. “I understand it took several hours before he could be brought back here.”

Vicrul nodded in agreement, realizing the long trek from Ord Mantell meant that Kylo’s injuries worsened in the intervening time period.

“If we had gotten to him within an hour, his chances would be much better, but this is now systemic. We’re talking tissue death, and bacta can’t help with that. We can only wait and see,” he whispered to Vicrul. “The young lady,” he said, looking at you through the window, “she is close to him?”

“His apprentice,” Vicrul conceded, “and something more, I think.”

“Consort?” the doctor asked hopefully.

Vicrul shrugged. “Maybe? Kylo hasn’t said. I think he was negotiating that when he left.”

“Mm,” the doctor said with understanding. “I don’t want to tell her yet.”

“I wouldn’t,” Vicrul agreed, looking sideways at the doctor, “she just lost a baby a couple of weeks ago.”

“This is she, then?” the doctor asked in surprise, pointing at you through the window.

Vicrul nodded solemnly.

The two men fell silent as they watched your pensive vigil.

~~~~~~

The medical staff were kind enough to bring a cot for you to place at Kylo’s side, and made facilities available for your comfort while you stayed. You refused to be separated from him for more than a couple of minutes.

As the day progressed, you watched meddroids open the tank every so often to cut away dead skin from his wounds. You could see tiny amounts of progress being made as the bacta worked to restore his tissues, but it was inconsequential in comparison to the volume of injuries he’d sustained.

You would occasionally look over to see the different Knights coming by to check on Kylo and you could see them talking amongst themselves. Later that evening you gathered your courage and stepped out to speak with them.

“Hello again,” you said with a bravery you pulled from deep down within you.

“Niessa,” Vicrul responded. “How is he?”

“About the same. The bacta seems to be helping a little bit, but it’s just so bad…” and you broke down, putting your face in your hands to cover your sobbing. Vicrul came over and put his arm around your shoulders.

“Don’t fret, missy,” he comforted you, “he’s strong, he’s young, he can pull through this.”

Pulling yourself together, you faced the six of them. “There’s something else to be considered,” you said solemnly. “The coronation was to be on Primeday, that’s only five days from now. It will have to be cancelled.” The Knights looked at each other, realizing the impact Kylo’s injuries were going to have on so many other aspects of life.

“This also means there could be another coup. We can’t let that happen. We have to preserve Ren’s leadership at all costs,” you said adamantly, your voice becoming steadier and stronger. “What can we do?” you asked them.

“General Pryde needs to be won over,” Cardo observed. “He was no fan of Hux’s, so we may be able to get him on our side if we promise him something.”

“Good,” you commended him, “offer him title of Moff and his own command after this,” you instructed.

“I think an announcement needs to be made,” Ap’lek observed.

“Nobody needs to know Ren is down,” Ushar objected.

“It’s a ship, people talk,” Ap’lek countered. “If you don’t think this hasn’t already gotten halfway across the fleet by now, you’re a fool!”

”Enough!” you cut in. “I think Ap’lek is right, but we need to craft a careful message. It has to convey that there is not a break in power and that Kylo will be back in command very shortly, because he will.”

Vicrul looked down when you said it.

“Vicrul, do you know something I don’t?” you asked.

The other Knights began shifting uncomfortably.

“All of you? Out with it!” you hollered at them.

“He may not make it, Niessa,” Trudgen said as gently as he could, which was a feat for the bulky man.

You looked over at Vicrul, who had been talking with the doctor, for confirmation. He nodded solemnly. Your hands went to your face as you inhaled sharply, the inference hitting you hard. You turned to look back at where Kylo lay in the tank, apparently on the edge of life or death. “I have to get back to him, I’ve been away too long as it is,” you said tightly. “Make a decision, but make it soon. And let me know what General Pryde has to say to the offer, I want an answer by tomorrow.” At that, you rounded on the group and fled back to Kylo’s side, leaving the Knights to discuss matters amongst themselves.

~~~~~~

“What think you, Vicrul?” Ap’lek asked.

“I know what I think,” Cardo replied, gazing over at you from the glass. “That girl has grown into a woman since last we did battle with her.”

Vicrul rubbed his chin and wandered the observation room, passing among his brethren. “She’s right, something needs to be done to ensure Kylo’s power remains intact,” he answered thoughtfully. “Which of you wants to approach Pryde?”

Ushar lifted his hand to volunteer. “I’ve spoken with him before, I think I can persuade him.”

Vicrul nodded. “Who wants to craft the message?”

Ap’lek piped up again. “I think it ought to be you, but,” he suggested, then hesitated.

“What, Ap’lek?” Vicrul prompted.

“I think she ought to record the message,” Ap’lek suggested, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder to indicate you.

Vicrul walked to the glass to watch you as you sat leaning against the bacta tank, communicating with Kylo through the Force, sending him energy to soothe his soul.

Cardo broke in. “Well, was he marrying her or not? Because if he’s not, then she doesn’t need to be part of this.”

Vicrul looked behind him at Cardo. “Must you always be so obtuse?”

“What?” Cardo replied defensively.

“It’s a fair question, Vicrul,” Trudgen interjected.

“Only the two of them know that,” said Vicrul. “Either of you want to go ask her at a time like this?” The team shifted uneasily but no one volunteered.

“Maybe I ought to,” Vicrul suggested. “Why don’t the lot of you get out, go do something constructive. I’ll talk to Niessa.”

They filed out one by one, taking a long look at their leader lest it be the last time they laid eyes on him, and Vicrul knocked on the glass to get your attention.

You strode back into the observation room and sat in one of the overstuffed chairs lining the walls.

“How is he?” Vicrul asked, sitting across from you.

“No change since this morning. I’m getting through to him, I can feel him in the Force, he’s so…” and you shook your head, unable to find the words.

“Niessa, this is a terrible time, but things are tenuous and I need to ask you something,” Vicrul began gently, placing a hand on your knee. “What is your relationship with Kylo?”

You recalled the moments you’d been thinking about Kylo before Vicrul had arrived that morning, bringing the awful news.

“He had asked me to marry him,” you replied, looking down at your lap, twisting the fabric of your fine dress in your trembling hands.

“And what did you say?” he inquired softly.

You hesitated, your resolve taking shape. “I had told him I needed time to think about it. Oh, how I wish I’d told him yes that very moment!” you choked back tears, trying not to break down again.

Vicrul gave you a moment to pull yourself together, and then said, “Very well. We’ll proceed as if you had. How does that sound?”

You shook your head yes, the reality of your commitment dawning on you.

“That means, once we draft a message to be played, we’ll want you to record it. You’ll be considered Consort-in-waiting, and we’ll need you to be the face of Kylo’s throne until he’s back to health.”

You nodded in agreement, unsure of your ability to meet the demands of the situation but committed to forging ahead.

Vicrul left to join the others while you returned to Kylo’s side. You knew he couldn’t hear you through the viscous liquid in which he was suspended but you pressed your cheek against the tank and looked over at his sleeping face. “I love you, Kylo. I _will_ marry you. Now, you just need to heal and return to us so that can happen.” You would have sworn you saw a twitch in his face and a tingle in the Force between you, and for the first time that day, you had hope.


	18. In which you find peace

Your hair was tied up in an elegant style not unlike that which you had seen Leia wear on many occasions, and you wore a light blue gown with a high collar, the jeweled choker Kylo gave you peeking through. You thought it too feminine, but General Pryde advised the color would convey both honesty and comfort in an effort to convince the audience of the sincerity of the message. The aesthetician who applied your makeup had made a special effort to hide the dark circles under your eyes, earned by the hours you had spent at Kylo’s side and you were eager to deliver the message so you could return and watch over him again.

“Ready?” Vicrul asked as the camera was put into position. You nodded slightly and pushed down the feeling of anxiety that rose up in your gut as you took a deep breath, readying yourself to speak to the masses.

"Today was to be a day of preparation, a day of anticipation of the formal installation of Kylo Ren as our new Supreme Leader,” your voice boomed over the speakers in every hangar and every conference room in every First Order ship and building as the announcement of Kylo’s confinement was relayed. “Sadly, that day must wait. While in service to his people, Ren was struck down by the treachery of the Resistance, though his mission was successful. This cannot go unanswered. I ask each and every one of you to double your efforts in pursuit of the destruction of our enemy, and to keep the health of your leader in the forefront of your minds. He will return to us in due time, and when he does, he will be relying upon all of you to do your part in keeping the First Order the reigning power in the galaxy. Long live the Supreme Leader!”

~~~~~~

You pulled the pins from the tight hairstyle as you sat next to Ren’s bacta tank, letting your locks spill over your shoulders. He’d made little progress since yesterday when he’d been placed there and you were disappointed to see he was no better.

“My lady?” the young woman from yesterday approached you. “The speech was wonderful.”

“Thank you, Corporal Csana, isn’t it?” you addressed her. “How has he been?”

“No change, but Doctor Maks will be in shortly,” she replied encouragingly.

As you sat and waited, you reached out to Kylo, feeling for him in the Force. He felt as if he was slipping, his signature weakening. You were frightened, experiencing a sense of foreboding.

‘Kylo,’ you tried communicating to him. ‘Don’t give up on me, not now, not after all we’ve been through.’ Kylo’s head moved slightly and you sensed a tiny vibration in the Force. It gave you solace and you hung on to the sensation with all of your might.

The doctor approached you then and you rose to meet him.

“What news have you?” you asked him eagerly.

“Well, he’s not worse, so we have that,” he replied optimistically. “If we see some improvement between today and tomorrow, we’ll remove him from the bacta and give him some skin grafts. However, we may have to amputate,” he added solemnly.

“Where?” you asked worriedly.

“Fingers at least, perhaps further. We’ll have to see how much tissue has been lost,” he replied grimly.

You considered his words carefully and looking down at Kylo’s beautiful fingers, you remembered with fondness the hands that had taught you to fight, showed you how to build a lightsaber, laid your child to rest and held your face in affection. You could see now they were lost.

“He doesn’t seem right,” you noted.

“I know you’re very worried about him,” Maks tried reassuring you.

“No, it’s more than that,” you said. “He’s slipping away, it’s beyond physical.”

The doctor looked at you almost patronizingly. “We deal in science, my lady, not magic. Don’t let your experience with mysterious forces cloud your judgment where medicine is concerned,” and he left you alone to watch Kylo languish.

You bedded down at Kylo’s side for the night, keeping yourself open to his Force signature until you fell asleep.

~~~~~~

Kylo was reaching out to you. “Let me go,” he was saying. His image was wavering like he was fading in and out of existence.

“No!” you replied, “I love you!”

“Please let me go, Niessa,” he pleaded. “I can’t do it anymore, I’m tired.”

“Don’t you dare leave me now!” you beseeched him.

“I can see Kyron,” he whispered, smiling.

“Oh, no! No no no!”

You woke with a start to see Kylo, floating in the bacta, fed by machines and lying perfectly still. The tank’s readout showed his pulse and oxygen level were still normal, giving you a sense of relief, but the dream haunted you into your woken state. Was this a Force vision like that which Kylo had taught you, or was this merely a nightmare borne of your fears? He’d taught you that visions couldn’t always be trusted and you hoped he was right, for you couldn’t bear the thought of losing him to death.

Vicrul was tapping at the observation window and you saw he was accompanied by the Knights. Leaving Kylo’s side begrudgingly, you went out to greet them, grateful for their presence.

“How is he?” Vicrul asked.

“No change,” you replied. “His vital functions are steady, but he seems like he’s slipping away from me.”

Several of the Knights appeared dejected by that news.

“Where do things stand with Pryde?” you asked Ushar.

“He’s amenable, with the stipulation that he can staff the ship to his specifications.”

“Done,” you said, waving a hand. “Thank you, Ushar.”

He nodded his head at you, accepting your acknowledgement. Their support of you reminded you that you had something to discuss with them.

“Let’s address matters while we have a moment,” you declared, folding your hands in front of you as you smoothed down the light blue gown. “The first time we met each other was under less than ideal circumstances.” Here the men showed signs of discomfort, shifting and coughing. “That day is behind us,” you announced decisively. “Today is about Kylo. All that matters now is that we forget our past and rally behind him. Agreed?”

The men all nodded and, looking at each other, one by one they knelt before you, showing their fidelity to you as Kylo’s consort.

“You are one of us now, Lady Niessa,” Vicrul spoke for the group.

You were taken aback but also grateful to have their support. “You do me a great honor,” you said, knowing how much they meant to Ren. You only wished Kylo could have seen it.

After the Knights left, you returned to Kylo’s side to wait for the doctor’s verdict on whether today would result in surgery or not. He came by not much later, checking the data the medical team had collected and observing Kylo for himself. His face showed some apprehension as he took in the information, trying to make a decision.

“I think we’ve got to try today,” he said, arriving at a conclusion. “My lady, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to take him back to operate.”

You nodded your assent, taking one last look at Kylo before you returned to the observation room, watching them drain the bacta tank and take him away to the operating suite. When they brought him back hours later, you could see where meddroids had delicately peeled dead tissue from Kylo’s burns and laid in skin grafts. Upon the doctor’s recommendation, the amputations were done, much to your consternation. You were heartbroken to see such a gruesome surgery performed on him and his appearance now was altogether bizarre, with half his flesh distorted and his fingertips gone, but you knew it had to be done before infection set in.

The next few days were the same as Kylo was again submerged in the bacta tank. However, you began to see slight improvement as his skin started to regrow through the grafts, the cells filling in slowly but surely.

One morning while you were sitting at his side, reading through an article on protocols on your datapad, you thought you saw Kylo stirring. You put the pad down on your lap and watched him intently for any sign of movement. Reaching out through the Force, you felt for him and you were greeted with a yearning sensation you hadn’t sensed from him before.

“Kylo, come back to us,” you whispered. “We need you. The First Order needs you.”

His face twitched a bit and you were encouraged.

“Kylo, _I_ need you. You need to finish my training, we need to get married so I can give you more children,” you volunteered. His head rolled to the side at that, and you became excited, running to the medic’s station to grab someone.

Csana came back with you and checked Kylo’s vital signs before opening the tank to scan Kylo directly.

“He appears to be waking,” she noted. “Let me notify the doctor, we’ll leave him here for the moment,” she said before closing the lid again.

You pressed your hands against the glass, speaking to him through the Force. ‘Wake up, Kylo! Please! We’re here for you, we’re going to get you better!’ You felt him responding back to you, waves of pain and confusion coming through in fits and starts. In return, you sent him comforting sensations in an effort to calm and reassure him.

The doctor approached with a handful of medics and you made room for them, returning to the observation room where you found Vicrul and Ap’lek awaiting you.

“He’s waking up!” you announced to them with hope.

“Finally,” Vicrul replied, and you could see a weight lift from the shoulders of both of the men.

The three of you stood at the window, observing the team as they lifted Kylo from the tank and placed him on a gurney before transporting him from the room as Corporal Csana returned to speak with you.

“Doctor Maks is going to take him back for some more procedures,” she advised. “We’ll come get you when we’re finished.”

You nodded your head in understanding, realizing how tense you were as your hands hurt, so tightly were you holding them together. “Thank you,” you replied.

Hours crawled by as you waited in the observation room, the Knights taking turns sitting at your side and bringing you food which you couldn’t eat. Your weight had dropped by double-digits between the ordeal of Kyron’s death and Kylo’s injuries, and you knew the level of stress you were under was dangerously high.

Finally, Doctor Maks came to meet you with an update.

“We’ve got him stabilized and in his own room now. We gave him prosthetics,” he said grimly, “but we had to amputate past the wrists on both hands, I’m sorry,” he apologized.

“It’s alright,” you reassured him. “If it means he can heal, then we’ll cope. When can we see him?” you asked eagerly.

“I can take you back now, if you like?” he offered, extending his arm toward the hallway.

“You go,” Vicrul offered to you, “we’ll come by later.”

You smiled briefly at him, letting the doctor escort you down the hall to a large white room, medical equipment strewn throughout and Kylo’s inert form central, his body covered by bacta blankets with tubes and wires everywhere. You gasped seeing him, and as he heard your voice, his eyes flickered open.

“Niessa?” he called quietly.

You flew to his side, grateful to see him conscious and recognizing you.

“Oh, stars, Kylo!” you exclaimed, wanting desperately to touch him but afraid of hurting him. Instead, you placed your hands over your mouth, trying to hold back the tears.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, trying to calm you, giving you half a smile.

“I thought you’d never come back to us,” you wept. “You almost-“ you didn’t want to say the words, swallowing the rest of your thought.

“Died,” he finished for you. “I know,” he concurred, his face showing the intensity of the experience he’d endured.

“So, it wasn’t my imagination?” you asked.

“No,” he answered. “I felt you, I knew you were there. I wanted to die. It was horrible.” He shifted, uncomfortable, trying to pull his arms out from underneath the blanket.

“Lie still,” you advised him, wanting to reach out and pacify him but you were afraid to put any pressure on his skin and cause him pain.

“My hands,” he winced, trying to lift them up.

“Stop,” you told him authoritatively. “They’re very bad, Kylo.”

He stopped struggling. “How bad?” he asked, his face a mask of concern.

Biting your lip, you hesitated. “They had to remove the parts that were burned,” you began gently. “They had to give you, um,” you stammered, then gathered the strength to tell him, “prosthetics. They couldn’t save your hands,” you informed him with regret.

His face fell and his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply and tilted his head back on the pillow, taking in the news.

“Kylo, I’m so sorry!” you burst out. “This is all my fault! If I hadn’t asked you to track down Poe, none of this would have happened.” You lay your face in your hands and cried for the cost you had both paid for the experiences you’d suffered.

“No, Niessa,” he said gently, “I would have done it regardless. It was my fight as well as yours. He took our son from us, and it couldn’t go unanswered. It was worth it,” he replied, his voice full of resolve.

His face was relatively unscathed, probably due to his helmet, and you leaned over to kiss him gently on the forehead. He then tilted his face up to you for a true kiss, and you placed your lips against his very tenderly. Kylo let you rest your mouth against his for a brief moment, then began drinking you in, his yearning for your touch overtaking him. You joined yourselves together for what seemed like hours, only breaking the caress when he began to tire.

“Sleep,” you admonished him. “We have all the time in the world for that,” you smiled at him as you brushed his hair back in place. He nodded at you before falling into a deep rest.

~~~~~~

After several weeks, Kylo had healed enough that the coronation plans were rescheduled. He still had far to go in terms of his body being back to normal, but he was well enough to attend meetings, give orders and plan for your wedding.

The coronation and wedding took place the same day, with Kylo installed as Supreme Leader and you as Empress, after all. The Knights stood vigil at both ceremonies, the past laid to rest amongst you as you united behind Kylo’s reign.

In the years to come, you became powerful in the dark side along Kylo and gave him many more children. Your first child as husband and wife was Kyden; then came the twins, Kylen and Kynan; two more boys in succession, Kylir and Kylal; and last came your little girl, Kyla.

And every year on the anniversary of Kyron’s passing, Kylo called for a day of mourning to remember your firstborn son, and the populace were invited to bring their children to the palace to be received into the teachings of the dark side. Likewise, a special directive had been established to ensure the care and feeding of infants throughout the galaxy so that no child would hunger or thirst ever again. You never forgot your precious infant, but the passing of the years softened the loss, and as you laid your head on your pillow every night next to Kylo, you would look at your sabers, resting in their twin stands on the dresser, and remember the mistake you made those many years ago that brought you a rich life which you wouldn’t give back for all the stars in the galaxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this foray into my recently resurfaced love of creative writing.  
> I like to include a PSA for difficult subjects that may have come up in my stories, and for this story, I'd like to ask that if you or someone you know is struggling with breastfeeding, please reach out to the LaLeche League for help: https://lllusa.org/locator/  
> Also, never be afraid to feel you have "failed" if you can't feed your baby with your own body - despite what proponents may tell you, not everyone's situation is the same, and not everyone can do it. The bottle is better than a hungry baby, and never be afraid to trust your own instincts. Ultimately, your child's well being is yours alone. Don't be afraid to stand up for yourselves!  
> Love and Light - May the Force Be With You.


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